The company you keep

Robert Redford, Shia LeBeouf, Julie Christie - Dir: Robert Redford.

Robert Redford's films are usually of a type that makes even a liberal lefty like myself frustrated and embarrassed. They're just so goddamned solemn and sanctimonious, like The Newsroom but without the drama. If someone's going to make thoughtful liberal films then why do they have to be this po-faced?
And there is a touch of that about The Company You Keep but, thanks to a smart script and an astonishing cast it remains a gripping drama, talky but always involving, with characters that all have a degree of ambiguity and complexity.
The plot has Redford playing a Weather Underground activist, once involved in violent resistance (they would call it terrorism today), who is now living peacefully under a secret identity. When another of his covert group (Susan Sarandon) turns herself in after 30 years his cover is under threat and he goes on the run, hotly pursued by the FBI and an intrepid journalist (LeBeouf). Along the way lessons and learnt and a lot of stuff is debated.
It's meaty intelligent material and it's a pure pleasure to watch actors of this calibre dig into it. In addition to those mentioned there are: Nick Nolte, Chris Cooper, Terence Howard, Stanley Tucci, Richard Jenkins, Anna Kendrick, Brendan Gleeson, Brit Marling, Sam Elliott and Stephen Root. (And, BTW, Julie Christie is still luminously wonderful.)

Britain in 871AD was - if Hammer of the Gods is to be believed – a pretty violent and unforgiving place. Marauding Vikings are trying to cope with a reinvigorated Saxon resistance, so the dying Viking king sends son Steinar to find his missing firstborn to take over the throne and army. It's a Bunch of Men on a Quest movie. There's a classy Game of Thrones look but it lacks that series' depth and complexity – this is more about warriors 'proving” themselves. It's not bad by any stretch but seems unlikely to appeal to anyone not already enamoured with swords and axes.

A Liar's Autobiography is a strange and misguided project. The title comes from the autobiography of Monty Python's gay alcoholic Graham Chapman, who also recorded himself reading the book, which is a very entertaining ride (and, yes, New Zealand does get a mention, but not very flatteringly). This film takes those recordings and sets them to animation of various styles. It's very weird and really does little justice to Chapman or the Pythons, though it seems well intended. Python fans may well be captivated. If not, they will surely find plenty of interest on the packed second disc of extras.

Winter, Minnesota, a series of gruesome murders and a scarred FBI agent coming out of retirement. Such are the ingredients of Profile of a Killer, a chilly mid-level indie that swiftly moves from manhunt to kidnap thriller after said killer – a teenager named David – abducts the profiler. Mind games ensue while the FBI continue to search. With such a set-up and budget it's all about how you tell ‘em, and this does a good – if slightly slow – job, gradually revealing David's warped pathology while (generally) skirting overt bloodshed. The performances are good, especially Joey Pollari as the troubled youth.

K11 is yet another reinvention of a ‘60s/'70s exploitation trope, this time the prison flick. But, refreshingly, it doesn't try to ape the original films' clichéd cheapness or laugh at their over-the-top silliness. Instead it creates a modern take, with a man – Ray Saxx (Goran Visnjic), successful albeit druggy music producer – waking up in the titular prison, a world ruled by corruption, drugs and rampant sexual weirdness. With a cast including Jason Mewes and other cult hams it's clearly no Shawshank Redemption but fans of the jailhouse genre might find pleasure in this frequently outrageous slice of Kafkaesque prison sleaze.