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’76’: film review | tiff 2016.

Grounded in real events, Nigerian director Izu Ojukwu's politically charged love story '76' premieres in Toronto this week ahead of its London launch next month.

By Stephen Dalton

Stephen Dalton

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Set against a backdrop of tumultuous events in modern African history, 76 has commendable aspirations to make a dramatic impact much bigger than its limited budget allows. Despite its culturally specific setting, the centerpiece of the Toronto International Film Festival ‘s City to City program of Nigerian cinema is primarily a universal mix of love story and political thriller. While director Izu Ojukwu does not entirely transcend the stilted, low-rent mannerisms associated with the prolific “ Nollywood ” film industry, his latest feature has potential to reach beyond local audiences and play internationally, especially in cities with large expat Nigerian communities. Following its world premiere in Toronto this week, 76 will screen at the London Film Festival next month.

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A plot that wears its nostalgia proudly – 76, a movie review

The work of making the archetypical movie thriller has become harder with the advent of technology. How does a script get around the ubiquity of the cell phone? How do the main characters not solve the riddle immediately with a single SMS? Filmgoers recognise the solution of the battery-depleted-at-a-most-inconvenient-time trope for how lazy it has become. But what about just taking the events of the story to a time before technology paralysed this genre?

Izu Ojukwu’s film, 76, is at its heart a film in the tradition of a 1970s paranoid Hollywood thriller. Protagonist Captain Joseph Dewas (a superbly cast Ramsey Noah), lives with his pregnant common-law wife Suzie (Rita Dominic) in an unnamed barracks next door to a caricature of a superior officer and his loud hard-drinking wife. It is early 1976, a year which some will recognise as the date of Nigeria’s first unsuccessful coup d’état. This is six years after the Nigerian civil war, a fact that is well-handled in the conflict between Captain Dewas and his Igbo in-laws. It is also beautiful the way this conflict is not presented as just an incident, but as an event that has some consequence in the plot.

So, what is the plot of this beautifully-shot film? In washed-out sepia tones, we find that Captain Dewas, recently redeployed from the presidential mansion, used to be an intelligence officer. His best friend and civil war buddy, Gomos (a perfectly-cast Chidi Mokeme shines in this role) is involved in the coup plot and needs Dewas for some unclear reason to be part of the plot. This leads to Dewas being on the run in a tightly-knit second act that in combination with the pounding score builds the tension to gigantic levels. It is one of the best parts of this two-hour picture. This sequence is what the entire film aspires to.

The performances are another highlight of the film. The casting director deserves praise. A filmgoer will easily forget that many of the characters being portrayed were in their late twenties and early thirties during the musical-chairs chaos of Nigeria’s military era coup culture. We believe in Rita Dominic, who deserves special praise for her turn as Suzie, heavily pregnant at the start of the film. We are convinced by Memry Savanhu’s Eunice, happily nasty wife of the next-door major, as she rocks her afro and changes vinyl records on the turntable. The labu trousers and platform shoes rock and are worth the price of admission to see the actors in.

Everything is important in Izu Ojukwu’s film. There are almost no wasted scenes (almost none: see two paragraphs below) and the concept of Chekov’s Gun ( if you show a pistol in the first act of your story, by the third act someone must fire that gun ) is adhered to quite satisfyingly. Never has so much consequence dwelt on the dripping of a leaky radiator.

Izu Ojukwu’s film wears its nostalgia proudly. In pivotal scenes, just out of focus, we glimpse a non-anachronistic album sleeve featuring Ebenezer Obey, a painted steel pot with Nigeria’s founding fathers, a basket wig-holder on a dressing table, Crittall Hope windows, and in one particularly skilful instance, properly-coloured Naira notes, when we should be looking for a missing ID card. It is praiseworthy, this fidelity with setting, even if it does get a little bit show-offy. Izu Ojukwu seems to be saying, these are the things that show I did my research, off-focus, so you do not think they are as important as we all know they are . It is good work and this reviewer praises him for it.

This review will not be complete without some knocks for the film. Nollywood now has a vocabulary and Mr. Ojukwu, as much as his skills as an auteur might try to paper over this, speaks the language a little too well. The camera dwells a millisecond too long on cultural dance scenes, and a chase through a children’s birthday seems to have been shot for the sole reason of bringing those black-and-white photos of birthday parties of this director’s (and this reviewer’s) generation to life, complete with the Oxford Cabin biscuits (this got a standing ovation at the screening this reviewer attended). There is still some distrust for the audience’s ability to deduce what is happening on screen, something that is painfully illustrated in the film’s only major failing, a too-long backstory info dump by Angela, Ibinabo Fibresema’s character, in the overly muddled third act of the film.

The ending of the film was very satisfying, oddly so, because as a Nollywood cynic, this reviewer went into this screening fearful of being disappointed. Was it relief that the curvy plot was coming to a close, or was it that despite my cynicism, Izu Ojukwu got to me? Bah! Humbug!

I first came across the trailer to the film, 76, more than 3 years ago. This fact was reiterated at the post-screening Q&A by a member of audience in the theatre where I watched the film. It has been a long journey for the filmmakers; a long journey that has come to a very satisfying end. Go and see this film.

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Movie Review: ’76

76 is a 2016 Nigerian historical fiction drama film directed by Izu Ojukwu and produced by Adonaijah Owiriwa, Izu Ojukwu, and Tonye Princewill. It tells a story of love and betrayal against the backdrop of a failed coup attempt in 1976.

The story is told from two points of view: that of a young pregnant woman, and that of her husband, a soldier accused of being involved in the failed 1976 military coup and assassination of General Murtala Mohammed, the Head-of-State of Nigeria. IMDb

The film follows Captain Joseph Dewa (Ramsey Nouah), a loyal soldier falsely accused of being part of the plot to assassinate General Murtala Muhammed, the head of state at the time. His pregnant wife Suzy (Rita Dominic) stands by him and tries to prove his innocence, while facing pressure from her family and the military authorities. The film is based on real events and features authentic costumes, props and locations from the period.

The film provides a glimpse into a turbulent chapter in Nigeria’s history that shaped its political and social landscape. The coup attempt of 13 February 1976 was led by Lieutenant Colonel Bukar Suwa Dimka, who claimed to act on behalf of a group of disgruntled army officers. They targeted General Muhammed, who had taken power in a bloodless coup in 1975 and initiated a series of reforms to curb corruption and ethnic rivalry. The plotters ambushed and killed Muhammed and his aide-de-camp in Lagos, but failed to seize control of the government and the radio station. The coup was swiftly crushed by loyalist forces, and Dimka and his co-conspirators were captured and executed after a court martial. Muhammed was succeeded by his deputy, Lieutenant General Olusegun Obasanjo, who continued his policies and oversaw Nigeria’s return to civilian rule in 1979.

The film is a commendable effort to portray this historical drama with a human touch. The performances of Nouah and Dominic are convincing and engaging, and they convey the emotional turmoil of their characters well. The cinematography and production design are also impressive, creating a realistic and immersive atmosphere of the 1970s. The film uses Super 16mm film to achieve a vintage look that suits the story.

However, the film also suffers from some flaws that undermine its potential. The pacing is slow and uneven, especially in the first half, where the plot takes too long to develop and the characters are not fully fleshed out. The dialogue is sometimes stiff and unnatural, and the sound quality is poor in some scenes. The film also does not provide enough context or explanation for the political situation and the motivations of the coup plotters, which may confuse or alienate viewers who are not familiar with Nigeria’s history. The film could have benefited from more editing and polishing to make it more coherent and compelling.

In conclusion, ’76 is strongly recommended. It’s a window to an inglorious past of a people. Highly immersive story. I believe the director did an excellent job. It took me almost 24 hours before recovering from the nostalgia.

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Directed by Izu Ojukwu

Nollywood superstars Ramsey Nouah, Rita Dominic, and Chidi Mokeme headline this gripping drama set against the backdrop of the attempted 1976 military coup against the government of General Murtala Mohammed.

Rita Dominic Ramsey Nouah Efetobore Afatakpa Nenye Eke Nelly Ekwereogo Ibinabo Fiberesima Chidi Mokeme Pat Nebo Paul Nsan

Director Director

Adonis Production Digital Jungle Studios Princewill's Trust

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

Igbo English

Alternative Titles

76, 奥斯卡十一月, 那年1976, 1976, 1976: Entre o Amor e a Revolução

Romance Drama

Releases by Date

11 sep 2016, 25 nov 2016, 06 jan 2017, 04 aug 2021, releases by country.

Digital Netflix
Digital 13+ Netflix
Premiere 15
Premiere PG-13 Palm Springs International Film Festival

118 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Tasha Robinson ★★★

Historical drama about the 1976 coup in Nigeria is at times a little more sprawling and politically opaque than I would have liked, but I found this film fascinating for its specific look at a historical period in a country I've rarely seen portrayed on film. The perspective on the internal machinations of a military coup, and the women who bear the brunt of the political shifts, was completely fresh for me. And it's unusual and striking that the focus is so much on wives and girlfriends as characters, and how what the army does affects their lives.

Review by Fara ★★★

Shot in 16mm, complementing the 70s time period. The film tells the story, interestingly from the women’s perspective, of the 1976 military coup in Nigeria.

I’m Nigerian and of course any opportunity to learn about our history I am keen.

It was my mum who actually heard about this historical drama and came to me asking to watch it. I was so happy, and I took it because she is not into film or television at all.

Rightfully so she fell asleep in the beginning, as the story felt dragged and I remember having a few “just get to the point moments”.

Funnily enough the costume design is probably my favourite thing about this film, I love 70s fashion, closely followed…

Review by Jun-Dai ★★½

Someone in the audience asked the director whether we should be expecting this sort of quality from Nollywood more (apparently there has been a mainstream film from Nigeria each of the last three London film festivals). The director then described how difficult the film was to make—pre-production took years, a month's worth of filming took 6 months, post-production took more years. He said that they could not get dailies since the film lab was in Germany and they could not easily transport the negatives there without getting them X-rayed, and so they were shooting blind (much to the anxiety of the producer). He said that if you see a film of this quality coming from Nigeria, then you know that…

Review by AJTrask ★★★

Fairly well-done drama about the Nigerian coup of 1976. Makes the wise choice to focus on a single, conflicted officer. It winds up splitting focus between him and his wife, which saps the momentum some. And it piles on the melodrama. But it does manage to give a coherent, dramatic account of events.

Review by PierceWarburton ★★

Nothing is more cowardly than a coup. Just the absolute worst process for regime change. Hate hate hate it. I would never lead a coup and that's a promise. Actually makes me so mad I'm getting worked up. The cowardly coup is the devilmans trick......

Review by Jeanne ★

J’ai jamais vu un film aussi mal joué, 1 point pour le fait historique que je ne connaissais pas.

Review by bianca ★★★

I thought ‘76 was an engaging film with well-written, fast-paced dialogue. The use of multiple languages made it easy to watch and comprehend, and while there were some plot points left open (whether by accident or by the hope the viewer would connect the dots), the story was interesting. I really appreciated the use of the actual archival footage interspersed throughout the film. The use of it during the student riots, as well as the executions, reminded me that these events really took place, and the way they blended that footage in with the film by shooting Suzie in black and white at times was a nice detail.

Review by jeffreyjude ★★★½

There are so many stories to be told in Nigeria and 76 takes one of our most important ones—the 1976 coup—and merges it with a love story. Ambitious in it’s scope, it builds up quickly in the first hour with wonderful performances from Rita Dominic, Ramsey Nouah and Chidi Mokeme but loses a little momentum after the coup events take place. Aside from the sound issues, it sketches a portrait of life in the 70s with the music and costume design and the supporting cast shows surprising depth and nuance in their performances. I thoroughly enjoyed this film and I hope more filmmakers tackle ambitious stories like this.

Review by Ekpenyong ★★★★

This is one of Nollywood's finest offerings in recent years.

Review by Talius (@RinzyReviews) ★★★½

'76 easily stands out for its production. It looks expensive, and the viewing experience also has that rich ting to it even though the movie is set in a Nigerian Army barrack of the '70s, a time of heavy dark clouds in the country's military history.

Suzie (played energetically by the ever bankable Rita Dominic), the wife of an honest soldier accused of complicity in a foiled coup tries to prove her husband's (Dewa) innocence and clear his name. It's an interesting premise with an even more interesting execution when the story surprisingly switches ownership from Dewa to Suzie, but the storytelling did start to lose me around the middle. Yet, '76 remains a nicely put together movie. With its…

Review by Jimbo without the Jet-Set ★★★

So I finally popped my Nollywood cherry and… it was actually alright!!

It’s an interesting story to begin with and the way it’s told is quite original (I won’t spoil it). The editing is coherent. Solid acting by the leads, the husband and wife. Natural and relaxed. It’s shot on 16mm film and captures the 70’s vibe brilliantly. Handheld camerawork (which I normally don’t like) is subtle and beautifully done. In fact, the cinematography and choice of film were what I liked most.

Things I didn’t like: first act is a bit slow. Then it gets melodramatic half way through the second act. It settles down thankfully. Also except for the two lead actors and maybe one other minor character, the…

Review by mylessauer ★★½

Strangely amateurish in a lot of ways, especially the sound mixing, which was really... bad? But the performances were strong for the most part and I was able to get on board by the last stretch. The three stars are more just acknowledging the effort than any measure of craft. I swear to god I saw a gun that as actually just wood wrapped in black duct tape.

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"76" is a well-made, engrossing historical drama

In an era where History is gradually being blotted out, it is important that events like that of 1976 are remembered.

As a historical piece, a great service has been done by

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'76': London Review

By Jonathan Romney 2016-10-17T08:09:00+01:00

Dir: Izu Ojukwu. Nigeria, 2016. 116 mins

Nigerian political history is filtered through domestic melodrama in ’76 , an ambitious hybrid narrative from director Izu Ojukwu. The background to the drama is the attempted coup of 1976 and the assassination of head of state Murtala Mohammed, but the film is determinedly focused on the lives of an officer and his wife who are reluctantly caught up in events.

The film somewhat loses momentum as it digs into the aftermath of events

The film’s fortunes should ride confidently on the Nollywood profile of stars Ramsey Nouah and Rita Dominic, and on the prestige of veteran director Ojukwu, whose work includes 2008 sports drama White Waters and Sitanda (2007), a multiple African Movie Academy award-winner. While festival slots will be forthcoming - it has played in Toronto and London – the film’s often rough finish, plus a cluttered narrative not always accessible to non-initiates, won’t yield significant crossover exposure. But ‘ 76 should thrive in established African distribution channels.

Set six years after the Nigerian civil war, the film takes place mainly on an army barracks, where Joseph Dewa (a solid, gravitas-exuding Nouah) is serving as a captain. Dewa is from Nigeria’s so-called Middle Belt, while his wife Suzy (Dominic) is from the south east, their ethnic difference causing a certain strain between them – largely because of the hostility of her father and brother. There are also tensions with a neighboring officer and his haughty wife (Memry Savanhu). Dewa finds himself tangling with the anti-Communist officers who are planning the assassination, with his old comrade-in-arms Comos (Chidi Mokeme) intent on getting him involved; instead, Dewa is set on whistleblowing, placing himself and the pregnant Suzy in jeopardy.

The film’s first hour moves between building up suspense as the coup plans take shape, showing the stresses in the couple’s home life, and sketching in the atmosphere of mid-70s Nigeria. It does the latter a little broadly at times, through use of contemporary soul and African music (the best-known artist used being Fela Kuti) and through often tongue-in-cheek costume design, notably the outrageous flared trousers sported by Suzy’s brother.

As for the thriller strand, its effectiveness is somewhat undercut by Ojukwu’s choice to use overlapping dialogue that’s often hard to follow, especially in long sequences of exposition (these, like most of the film’s dialogue, are in English, although Suzy and her relatives converse in Ibo).

After the assassination happens, and the coup itself fails, the film somewhat loses momentum as it digs into the aftermath of events, and the investigation by a sly, ruthless officer who grills the imprisoned Dewa, now very much implicated against his will. A wild card is the arrival of a mystery woman (Fiberisima) who initially seems to be Suzy’s rival but proves a welcome ally, while even troublesome neighbor Eunice shows a softer, and indeed, tragic side – some nice shading here from Savanhu, an effective scene-stealer throughout especially when in brassy comic mode. Daniel K. Daniel, as Dewa’s conflicted adjutant, also shows quietly compelling subtlety amid a cast that can sometimes be stiffly overdemonstrative.

Buoyed by archive footage in black and white and colour, ’76 economically evokes its period and key events, but international audiences looking for hard historical enlightenment may feel frustrated by the film’s fundamental commitment to the domestic sphere, with addition touches of thriller tension. DoP Yinka Edward lays on the atmospherics effectively, and gives the sometimes claustrophobic camp setting a vivid concreteness.

Production companies: Adonis Productions, Princewill’s Trust

International sales: Shoreline Entertainment, [email protected]

Producers: Izu Ojukwu, Adonija Owiriwa

Screenplay: Emmanuel Okomanyi

Cinematography: Yinka Edward

Editor: Emeka Ojukwu

Main cast: Ramsey Nouah, Rita Dominic, Chidi Mokeme, Ibinabo Fiberisima

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‘Chile ’76’ Review: A Thrillingly Intimate Take on the Pinochet Regime’s Reign of Terror

Manuela Martelli’s expertly crafted character study grounds Chile’s political history of resistance in the tale of a bourgeois woman’s begrudging radicalization.

By Manuel Betancourt

Manuel Betancourt

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Reviewed online, April 10, 2023. (In Cannes, London, Palm Springs, New Directors/New Films film festivals.) Running time: 95 MINS. (Original title: "1976")

Production: (Chile-Argentina-Qatar). A Kino Lorber (in U.S.) release of a Cinestación, Wood Producciones, Magma Cine Production production. (World sales: Luxbox, Paris.) Producers: Omar Zúñiga, Alejandra García, Nathalia Videla Peña, Dominga Sotomayor, Andrés Wood, Juan Pablo Gugliotta.
Crew: Director: Manuela Martelli. Screenplay: Martelli, Alejandra Moffat. Camera: Yarará Rodríguez. Editor: Camila Mercadal. Music: María Portugal.
With: Aline Kuppenheim, Nicolás Sepúlveda, Hugo Medina, Alejandro Goic. (Spanish dialogue)

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‘Chile ’76’ Review: Domestic Unease That Twists Into Intrigue

Manuela Martelli’s new film examines the Pinochet dictatorship through the eyes of a woman who never intended to play an active role.

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A middle-aged woman in an overcoat holds a red and white phone to her ear while making a tense fist with her other hand.

By Teo Bugbee

In 1973, the socialist government of Chile was overthrown by a military junta led by Gen‌‌. Augusto Pinochet, with the backing of the United States. Thousands were killed, and hundreds of thousands fled the country under Pinochet’s dictatorship, which lasted for 17 years and was maintained through violence. ‌

With the new film “Chile ’76,” the director Manuela Martelli joins the company of Chilean filmmakers like Pablo Larraín and Sebastián Leilo, who have made thought-provoking movies reflecting on the Pinochet regime and its impact on the lives of everyday people. Martelli’s initial inspiration for the story came from a source close to home. She imagined the loss felt by her grandmother, who died by suicide in 1976, one of the most violent years of the dictatorship, before Martelli was born.

The protagonist of “Chile ’76” is Carmen (Aline Küppenheim), a regal woman of middle age. She’s a grandmother and a career flight attendant who now lives a comfortably bourgeois lifestyle with her husband in Santiago. When the story begins, she’s in the process of overseeing renovations to her family’s beachside vacation home. Carmen occupies her time alone with charitable work, guided by the sanguine priest of the town, Father Sánchez (Hugo Medina).

Carmen is discomforted by the sanctioned brutality around her — early on, she witnesses distraught neighbors being dragged away in the streets. But Carmen’s comfortable existence is not directly disrupted until Father Sánchez asks her to care for a fugitive hidden in the church. She acquiesces, nursing Elías (Nicolás Sepúlveda), a wounded revolutionary, back to health. She transports antibiotics for his injuries, and lies to the suspicious authorities to cover her tracks. Anxiety becomes Carmen’s constant companion as telephones buzz on lines that might be tapped, and neighbors pry, posing inconvenient questions.

Martelli’s film demonstrates remarkable skill in reconstructing he time period, giving consideration both to recreating the appearance of the era and its emotional tenor. She filmed in beach towns that have remained relatively unaltered since the ’70s, and she complements the look of crumbling building facades with wood-paneled interior sets. It’s a world that’s both worn and warm; even the wallpaper comes in cozy plaid.

Yet Martelli’s detailed, beautiful frames aren’t signs of empty aestheticism. Her eye for composition mirrors that of her protagonist, a person of elegant tastes who is drawn into a political plot that intrudes upon her capacity to redesign. The film’s original score blends electronic and orchestral music, and acts as an indicator of Carmen’s justified paranoia, entering in moments when her routines are most disturbed. As an entrant into the growing canon of Chilean films responding to the Pinochet dictatorship, “Chile ’76” is a sly genre exercise, an example of how political repression can squeeze a domestic melodrama until it takes the shape of a spy thriller.

Chile ’76 Not rated. In Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters.

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Review: A woman of conscience chooses action during the time of Pinochet in ‘Chile ‘76’

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It’s beneath a specifically rich hue of pink paint that Carmen (Aline Küppenheim), a former nurse from the upper crust of Chilean society, aims to conceal any signs of unrest within her. The horrors of the Pinochet dictatorship rage in close proximity, sometimes directly in her line of sight, as she tries to keep them from fracturing her illusion of a proper life.

“Chile ’76” a gripping psychological thriller written and directed by Manuela Martelli , distills the sociopolitical ills of the South American country during one of its bleakest periods into a blistering radiograph of a torn character. Trapped inside a culture poisoned with entrenched conservative ideologies, Carmen harbors a secretly progressive conscience.

While dealing with renovations to the family’s beach house, where her doctor husband and grandchildren will join her for the summer from Santiago, whispers of trouble reverberate inside its walls. The unnerving sharp edges of Mariá Portugal’s piercingly dissonant score herald impending trouble. Tending to a request from a trusted priest (Hugo Medina), Carmen puts to use her medical knowledge — and influence — to patch up an injured “criminal” in secret. After getting to know him, she’ll do far more to aid his cause.

In a sublimely restrained turn, Küppenheim conveys a graceful desperation. Her state of founded paranoia grows as she puts herself on the line to connect the fallen revolutionary with his comrades. Küppenheim embodies the brave ambivalence of a privileged woman, whose position hasn’t entirely protected her from the dictates of a patriarchal state. It’s not that she is suddenly taking a side, but rather backing her long-held ideals with actions.

The elegantly composed visual confections of cinematographer Soledad Rodríguez, another member of this female-centric production, preserve a deceitful patina of idyllic nostalgia, which is shattered intermittently through the increasingly disturbing signs that Carmen’s efforts haven’t gone unnoticed by those in charge of brutally silencing dissent. Martelli handles the character’s tension with harrowing precision. One traffic stop, for example, turns into a moment of pure agony, and religious pleading, because a car won’t start.

a woman in a parking lot with two old cars looking out on the ocean

Eventually, the pink color that she so painstakingly selected to coat one of her vacation property’s rooms, inspired by a vibrant crimson sky on a travel guide, resembles the diluted blood of the man she’s risked so much to help. In a variety of distinct shades, pink emerges as a motif for Carmen’s involvement through her outfits. It gains prominence and saturation the more her affluent oblviousness to the nation’s reality vanishes.

With co-writer Alejandra Moffat, Martelli carves a refreshingly feminist entry point into a subject matter so understandably present in the cinema of their homeland. Rather than relitigate the monstrous legacy of the men in power then, the director opts for a portrait of the era painted in seemingly offhand lines of dialogue that communicate plenty, quiet instances of internalized terror for Carmen, and immaculate images. Concise, yet affecting, “Chile ‘76” assuredly occupies the post as one of the finest Latin American productions to open stateside this year.

“The cake is ready,” says a housekeeper through tears as “Chile ‘76” nears its end. Such a banal preoccupation amid the dehumanizing antics of the regime recalls how those who could afford it carried on with a false sense of normalcy while their compatriots disappeared en masse without a trace. The splatter of the chaos happening just beyond their manicured silos ultimately proved inescapable. Sooner or later, it stained their hands with guilt.

‘Chile ’76’

In Spanish with English subtitles Not Rated Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes Playing: Starts May 19, Laemmle Royal, West Los Angeles

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‘The Union’: It Took Halle Berry to Make a Mark Wahlberg Movie Watchable

The new Netflix action flick makes one inexplicable choice after another. The one solid one: casting Berry, who almost saves the movie.

Barry Levitt

Freelance Writer

Photo composite by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Netflix

In Julian Farino’s The Union , now on Netflix , Mike ( Mark Wahlberg ) is your everyday, All-American dude. He works in construction by day and hangs out at the local bar with his construction buddies at night. He’s lived in New Jersey his whole life and has no plans to leave. He’s got everything he could need—a steady job, good pals, and a fling with his former seventh-grade teacher (Dana Delany). What more could he possibly need?

That’s something Mike finds himself asking when Roxanne ( Halle Berry ) appears at the bar one fateful night. They were the toast of their high school growing up, but Roxanne left Jersey and never looked back. Her return sparks all sorts of old feelings in Mike, and they seem to have a lot of unfinished business—and feelings—for each other. The next morning, Mike is stunned to find that he’s woken up in London. It’s his first time out of America and he didn’t even know he left. Turns out Roxanne works for a secret agency known as the Union, and she’s drugged and transported Mike to London to recruit him for a top-secret mission.

See, the Union has remained an unknown organization for eons because they specifically recruit people who fly under the radar. Working-class types, who, as the Union's leader (J.K. Simmons) puts it, know how to get things done because they’ve never been handed anything a day in their lives. The Union largely operates from London, where they’ve built a vast and powerful network of agents.

This begs the question: What exactly does Mike have that makes him such a standout candidate? It’s clear the Union has considerable resources and a robust team full of talented agents who’ve trained for years in their field, so what does Mike offer to a mission that could put all of Western security at its brink? Especially when Mike has never left the tri-state area or expressed any interest in life outside Paterson, New Jersey. Surely there’s some sort of ability Mike has that Roxanne remembers from their time together that makes him useful for the highest-stakes mission the Union has ever come across?

Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg

Courtesy of Netflix

I don’t know the answer to that question, and neither does The Union . Mike is, quite literally, just some guy. A generic action-movie training montage shows that he can grasp in a matter of days what takes most agents six months, but the only reason he seems to be able to do this is narrative convenience.

The script, written by Joe Barton ( The Lazarus Project ) and David Guggenheim ( The Christmas Chronicles ), seems far more interested in plot twists for the sake of plot twists and heavy bouts of exposition over any meaningful detail, which makes The Union a frustratingly bland movie. It’s one of many logical frustrations—Mike’s alias is a man from Boston, an accent he adopts and then abandons three seconds later. Another bizarre instance occurs when one of the agents mispronounces a popular region in London. Unforced errors like this happen throughout The Union , and its fascination with exposition and overcomplicated plots no reasonable person would be interested in results in more of these lazy issues.

The same lack of attention to detail is reflected in Roxanne’s hair. It’s as illogical as it is impractical—why would a spy wear her hair in a way that can easily obscure her vision? The blonde streaks are eye-catching, but the Union prides itself on slipping under the radar, using people who can effortlessly blend into everyday situations and not attract attention to themselves. Roxanne’s hair, however, is made to stand out, which is the very antithesis of the Union. Giving Halle Berry such an unflattering hairstyle is questionable enough, but giving her character a look that goes against the very essence of what she’s trying to do is criminal.

Halle Berry

Laura Radford/Netflix

Berry is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the saving grace of The Union . She’s charming and believable (hair aside) as a kickass agent, and while the script and uninspired action choreography give her nothing of note to work with, her energy is still infectious, and her chemistry with Wahlberg is pretty decent, which is impressive since Wahlberg is generally unconvincing in the lead role.

Berry and Wahlberg have both said that they’ve always wanted to work together, and I don’t blame them for choosing The Union to do just that—who in their right mind would turn down the opportunity to film in great locations for what was presumably a hefty sum? But if the co-stars had fun filming, you’d barely know it based on the end result. It’s a lifeless, visually uninteresting, convoluted experience that combines the thrills of waiting in a dentist's office with the mystery of waiting at the DMV.

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Movie Review: Mark Wahlberg, Halle Berry lead a middling spy comedy in ‘The Union’

This image released by Netflix shows Halle Berry, left, and Mark Wahlberg in a scene from “The Union.” (Laura Radford/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows J.K. Simmons, left, and Halle Berry in a scene from “The Union.” (Laura Radford/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows Mark Wahlberg, left, and Halle Berry in a scene from “The Union.” (Laura Radford/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows Halle Berry in a scene from “The Union.” (Laura Radford/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows Mike Colter in a scene from “The Union.” (Laura Radford/Netflix via AP)

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“The Union,” an action comedy with Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry, should have been more fun. Or more exciting. It certainly had a lot working in its favor, including big stars and a budget for globetrotting.

But it’s lacking a certain charm that could help it be something more than the Netflix movie playing in the background.

“The Union,” streaming Friday, is a fairy tale — a very male one, about a middle-aged everyman (Wahlberg) whose life never quite got started and who gets recruited to be a spy out of the blue. Mike is a broke construction worker still living in his hometown of Patterson, New Jersey, (yes, there are Springsteen songs) with his mother, hanging with his old friends in bars. His biggest win of late was a one-night stand with his 7th grade English teacher and the one event on his calendar is his friend’s wedding in a few weeks where he’s the best man.

That’s all to say that for Mike, it is a breath of fresh air when his old high school girlfriend Roxanne (Berry), walks into the bar one evening looking like a punk rock superhero. Glamorous and confident, she has clearly found a life outside of Patterson. The problem, or a problem I think, is that we already know what she does. Instead of putting the audience in Mike’s shoes, as the fish out of water trying to figure out why he’s woken up in a luxury suite in London after meeting his high school ex in his hometown bar, “The Union” starts on Roxanne. It begins with a kind of “Mission: Impossible”-style extraction gone wrong, in Trieste, Italy, where most of her team ends up dead.

The idea came from Stephen Levinson, Wahlberg’s longtime business partner, who together helped bring another middle of the road Netflix action-comedy to life in “Spenser Confidential.” And it was directed very basically by Julian Farino, a journeyman director who helmed many episodes of “Entourage,” and written by Joe Barton and David Guggenheim. And there is a sort of charming fantasy about the notion that anyone could be an international spy given the opportunity and a few weeks of training. In the movies, women get to find out they’re secret royalty and men get to find out they’re secretly great spies.

“The Union” never quite hits its stride tonally. It’s not silly enough to be a comedy, but I think that’s what it would prefer to be. J.K. Simmons is given too little to work with as the head of this secret agency, which also employs underwritten characters played by Jackie Earle Haley, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Alice Lee. One of the more moderately successful running jokes is that Mike’s undercover character is from Boston (get it?). A hulking English henchman even has a heart to heart with him about “Good Will Hunting.”

Berry and Wahlberg are fine together, with an easy rapport, but zero chemistry. This would not be problem if the movie wasn’t also trying to be a will-they-won’t-they romance between a woman who forgot her roots and a guy who needs to. I never quite bought into the idea that either of them are actually still thinking about their high school relationship and what went wrong. There’s been a lot of life in the interim to dwell on decisions you made at 17. Not everyone can be Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, or even Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton – but maybe the story should have changed to suit these actors.

There’s just not enough there — action, comedy, romance, art — to demand (or, rather, earn) your full attention.

“The Union,” a Netflix release streaming Friday, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for “sequences of strong violence, suggestive material and some strong language.” Running time: 107 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.

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Chile '76 Reviews

A political and psychological thriller about the moral struggle of a bourgeois women living under a dictatorship.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 24, 2023

Very Precise in its screenplay and in its mise-en-scène, the debut feature by Chilean Manuela Martelli follows the steps of a woman with bourgeois manners who, in the midst of a dictatorship, sees her moral conscience shaken. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 3, 2023

What Martelli and her co-conspirators have created with the radicalization of Carmen in Chile ‘76 -- and what, incidentally, eludes so many contemporary horror films -- is the palpable sense of dread.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 17, 2023

With Chile ’76, Martelli has crafted a simmering political thriller that reflects what it’s like to live under a dark cloud of creeping mistrust and the threat of violence.

Full Review | Jul 20, 2023

If you dig just below the surface, you realize that it IS a political story, but one more subtle and personal and with a distinctly femme POV

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jul 6, 2023

It shepherds viewers to a resolution that ought to be affecting, but because it's so tidy and airtight, fails to leave much of an impression. It leaves you thinking, not about what you saw, but about the movie that could have been.

Full Review | Jul 3, 2023

Martelli builds suspense along with Carmen’s dawning social awareness, her film becoming a paranoid thriller before its devastating conclusion.

Full Review | Jul 1, 2023

Hints of a standard melodrama fall away to reveal tense political intrigue, becoming the centerpiece of a talented filmmaker’s somber salute to the spirt of revolution.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 30, 2023

Chile ‘76 doesn’t capture the complete feeling of life under Pinochet. But the fresh perspective gives it a sense of importance due to Martelli’s innovative grasp on tackling the theme of oppression.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jun 27, 2023

A wealthy middle-aged woman finds herself drawn into helping rebels opposed to the brutal Pinochet regime in this historical thriller that's curiously lacking in intrigue.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 20, 2023

Chile ’76 turns out to be a paranoid thriller altogether worthy of the era it captures with such cool, self-contained style.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 13, 2023

It’s not a perfect film, but it’s a deft one. If anything’s for certain, Martelli is a director to watch for.

Full Review | Jun 12, 2023

A riveting Hitchcockian thriller, led by Aline Küppenheim's remarkable performance, that questions indifference and privilege. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 9, 2023

A very powerful and chilling reminder of what it would be like to live in a police state.

Full Review | Jun 6, 2023

With her first film, writer-director Manuela Martelli would make Alan J. Pakula proud as she revisits a tumultuous time in her country.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | May 29, 2023

A gripping psychological thriller written and directed by Manuela Martelli, distills the sociopolitical ills of the South American country during one of its bleakest periods into a blistering radiograph of a torn character.

Full Review | May 19, 2023

A well-observed tense feminine political thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: B | May 17, 2023

[Aline] Küppenheim is more than up to the task of carrying the film.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10 | May 15, 2023

Küppenheim is terrific in holding the film together.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 13, 2023

Opaque and respectable to a fault, this is the kind of film that confuses obscurity with significance. It is one thing to keep the audience at a distance, while it is quite another to avoid any possibility of engagement.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 9, 2023

Movie Review: Mark Wahlberg, Halle Berry lead a middling spy comedy in ‘The Union’

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Alien: romulus review: it's utterly terrifying and worthy of its place in the xenomorph universe, share this article.

The Alien universe is back, baby.

The latest entry, Alien: Romulus , hit theaters this week as director Fede Alvarez ( Don’t Breathe , Evil Dead ) perfectly balanced the horror/action genres to return Xenomorphs to the big screen.

Alien: Romulus falls on the timeline about 20 years after the happenings of 1979’s Alien , and about 35 years before the Space Marines visit LV-426 in 1986’s Aliens . Weyland-Yutani, the corporation that has been trying to get their hands on the alien specimen for testing and exploitation, tracks down the Xenomorph that Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) “blew out of the [expletive] airlock” in Alien .

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Unsurprisingly, attempting to experiment on the alien goes horribly wrong for the scientists. As a result, their facility — a massive ship split between parts Romulus and Remus — appears to be dormant in orbit just above the Weyland-Yutani mining station, Jackson’s Star. Tyler (Archie Renaux) enlists the help of Rain (Cailee Spaeny) to travel to the derelict space station in search of cryopods to help them make their escape from the company’s control.

While Spaeny ( Priscilla ) and Renaux ( Upgraded ) are wonderful, David Jonsson steals the show as Andy. Jonsson flawlessly plays one of Weyland-Yutani’s older-model androids — or synthetic human, as they like to be called — that goes from twitchy, dad-joke sharing sidekick to company-driven and analytical after an unplanned upgrade.

Jonsson is a more-than-worthy addition to the impressive list of Alien universe androids that includes Ian Holm ( Alien ), Lance Henriksen ( Aliens ) and Michael Fassbender ( Prometheus, Alien: Covenant ). He elicits sympathy and unease as he switches between the versions of Andy.

On the whole, Romulus finds a way to mix in elements of its predecessors while bringing new — and terrifying — components to the universe. If you wanted not only way more face huggers but also more terrifying face huggers, well, you’re in luck. There are brutal deaths, chest bursters, explosions, bad decisions and more.

The third act will be talked about a lot, and for good reason as it dials up the horror aspect of the movie as far as it goes. While Romulus is not the best in the Alien franchise, it’s one that earned its spot in the upper echelon.

Movie: Alien: Romulus Release Date: August 16 Director: Fede Alvarez Stars: Cailee Spaeny, Archie Renaux, David Jonsson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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Movie Review: Mark Wahlberg, Halle Berry lead a middling spy comedy in 'The Union'

This image released by Netflix shows Halle Berry, left, and Mark Wahlberg in a scene from "The Union." Credit: AP/Laura Radford

But it’s lacking a certain charm that could help it be something more than the Netflix movie playing in the background.

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There’s just not enough there — action, comedy, romance, art — to demand (or, rather, earn) your full attention.

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There’s a great high-concept premise at the start of “Consumed,” an otherwise frustrating creature feature about a married couple who go camping and then fall apart. A rift has already formed between Beth ( Courtney Halverson ) and Jay ( Mark Famiglietti ) before they set out on a long hike, so tension only continues to grow once they’re attacked by a crazed outdoorsman ( Devon Sawa ) and what may or may not be a flesh-eating monster.

There’s more than enough situational peril baked into Beth and Jay’s marital problems to sustain a brisk 97-minute runtime, though Sawa’s haunted and generically standoffish antagonist provides a welcome dramatic complication. Still, it’s way more interesting to see Beth realize that she and her partner are no longer in sync, especially given how thoughtlessly overbearing Jay can be.

Beth’s a breast cancer survivor, and Jay doesn’t really know how to talk with her about what she went through. She’s also plagued by nightmarish, PTSD-style images of her body rebelling against her, either during or following a traumatic medical procedure. Jay clearly wants to make Beth feel seen and appreciated but doesn’t seem to understand or be particularly receptive to Beth’s feelings. For him, this trip is a victory lap; for her, it’s maybe the end of their time together. Then, they discover animal tracks filled with what looks like creamed spinach. A bear trap, a monster, and a raft of expository dialogue further complicate matters.

Like a lot of recent trauma-focused horror movies, “Consumed” eventually settles on its most troubled protagonist. The filmmakers’ focus on Beth might not have felt so confining if Jay was either further developed or reduced to a more convincing foil for Halverson to play off of. At first, Jay seems like a real enough problem, especially when he hovers and then smothers Beth with attention. Famiglietti makes it easy for you to believe that this type of well-meaning but unlikable personality might exist, particularly when he tries to make a ritual of burning Beth’s hospital ID bracelet. If you’ve ever been reluctantly admitted to a hospital, you know how difficult it can be to not want to scream at your uncomprehending friends and/or relatives. This preliminary section of “Consumed” credibly evokes that struggle.

Quinn, Sawa’s deranged hunter, then eclipses Jay as the main focus of Beth’s anxiety. He withholds crucial information from Beth and Jay for reasons that are somewhat obvious, but still unfold in their own time. Quinn’s also dealing with his own trauma, as you can see by the way he puffs on Beth’s cigarettes or mutters in sentence fragments. Sawa’s commitment to his role is undeniable, but Quinn never seems more than an obstacle in Beth’s path.

Still, once Quinn shows up, “Consumed” becomes more about surviving a “The Twilight Zone”-worthy threat that’s mostly implied but also occasionally visualized through suggestive, modestly-budgeted creature effects. Fans of Glass Eye Pix founder Larry Fessenden ’s horror movies will already be familiar with the voracious fiend at the heart of “Consumed.” However, its identity is never as well considered here as in Fessenden’s soulful low-budget chillers.

Instead, “Consumed” becomes more about the tension between Beth and Quinn, leaving Jay to fade into the background. That sort of shallow focus might have been forgivable in a movie where Beth and Quinn share or at least talk to each other in a way that teases out their respective hang-ups. Unfortunately, the dialogue in “Consumed,” credited to screenwriter David Calbert , focuses more on pushing the plot along than unpacking either Beth or Quinn’s feelings.

It’s always hard to know why on-camera performances don’t play well off of each other, especially when their characters are at cross purposes with each other. Based on what’s on-screen, both “Consumed”’s dialogue and the direction fail to expand on the movie’s distinguishing concern with Beth’s emotional turmoil. Too much conversation weakens the impact of the monster attack scenes that will presumably hook most viewers in the first place. Some pseudo-folksy dialogue also rolls off of Sawa’s tongue like a wad of sandpaper, like when he clocks Beth’s post-cancer infirmity: “You’re sick, ain’t you?” That sort of line needs a bit more context to land properly, and “Consumed” doesn’t have nearly enough padding to make it stick.

A sense of rhythm or frustrated chemistry might have made a difference in “Consumed,” at least enough to stick to the movie’s by-the-numbers conclusion. Unfortunately, clumsy and mostly inert dialogue often pre-emptively steps on Beth and Quinn’s actions, making it even harder to anticipate whatever comes next. It’s also hard to shake the feeling that we’re watching inexperienced or simply ungrounded performers struggling to enhance threadbare material. Some exciting moments are scattered throughout “Consumed,” but they’re never as compelling as the movie’s initial promise.

Simon Abrams

Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in The New York Times , Vanity Fair , The Village Voice, and elsewhere.

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The Outrun review: "Saoirse Ronan is exceptional in this affecting drama about addiction and hope"

GamesRadar+ Verdict

An exceptional performance from Saoirse Ronan powers this affecting, slow-moving drama about addiction and hope.

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The Outrun opened the 77th Edinburgh International Film Festival. Here’s our review…

“It never gets easy - it just gets less hard.” So goes the advice to recovering alcoholic Rona (Saoirse Ronan) in this drama based on Amy Liptrot’s best-selling memoir. We first meet Rona when she is living back home in Orkney with her mother; a reluctant house guest whose friends have all moved away.

There’s a telling scene where she asks a young man for a light in the street and awkwardly tries to strike up a conversation. She’s clearly desperate for friends, and the folks in her mother’s Bible club aren’t going to cut it. But going back to London would likely be too much temptation, as we see in the flashbacks that give glimpses into Rona’s descent into alcoholism - an addiction that cost her everything she held dear.

There’s a stark contrast in style and pace between the scenes in the capital and those on the windswept islands. Some of Rona’s memories have the juddery excitement of a giddy party; others pause for a romantic moment with her ex-boyfriend.

As the film progresses, the flashbacks become more disturbing - we join in Rona’s horror as she wakes up with no memory from a violent, drunken night. It all feels horribly believable, unlike many an onscreen alcoholic episode. Ronan is as mesmerising to watch as ever, whether in self-destructive mode or in a subdued depression, wondering if she will ever be happy again.

Nora Fingscheidt (System Crasher) directs with a slow and steady hand, taking time to explore both Rona’s moments of solitude and those in which she encounters others. From her loner father to her Alcoholics Anonymous comrades, each interaction sheds light on Rona’s psychological state. In the present, she is often a woman of few words, leaving Ronan to convey a range of emotions with her movements and micro-expressions.

She’s supported by a strong cast including Stephen Dillane as her father, whose mental-health problems Rona fears she has inherited. Paapa Essiedu puts in a sympathetic performance as her one-time boyfriend Daynin, whose patience is tested to the limit. Meanwhile, Saskia Reeves is excellent as the well-meaning but disapproving mother.

The Outrun is released in UK cinemas on September 27.

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COMMENTS

'76
Oct 17, 2016 Full Review Joanne Laurier World Socialist Web Site Focused as it is on the relationship between Joseph and Suzy, the movie sheds little light on the February 13, 1976, assassination ...
'76 (2016)
5/10. Didn't live up to expectation. iamdcontingency 8 October 2022. '76 should be applauded for its great story, great acting, great actors, and great costumes and setting. But these laudable qualities are affected by weak characterization, a convoluted plot, and haphazard plot arraignment.
Chile '76 movie review & film summary (2023)
Call your movie "Chile '76," however, and you have to expect some viewers will anticipate world-historical subject matter. After all, 1976 marks three years after the violent overthrow of a democratically elected government in Chile, three years into the nearly 20 years of the brutal authoritarian regime of Augusto Pinochet.
'76
Full Review | Jul 8, 2020. Despite an intriguing historical setup, '76 struggles to tell a cohesive political story, and loses its thread as the personal subplots overshadow the events of the coup ...
'76': Film Review
Movies; Movie Reviews '76': Film Review | TIFF 2016. Grounded in real events, Nigerian director Izu Ojukwu's politically charged love story '76' premieres in Toronto this week ahead of its ...
A plot that wears its nostalgia proudly
Izu Ojukwu's film, 76, is at its heart a film in the tradition of a 1970s paranoid Hollywood thriller. Protagonist Captain Joseph Dewas (a superbly cast Ramsey Noah), lives with his pregnant ...
'76 (film)
' 76, formerly Lions of '76, is a 2016 Nigerian historical fiction drama film directed by Izu Ojukwu and produced by Adonaijah Owiriwa and Izu Ojukwu. ... Ojukwu always had fantasies about making military movies, so much that he followed many coup stories. When the ' 76 project came along, ...
Movie Review: '76
Movie Review: '76 Movie Title: '76 Director: Izu Ojukwu Release date: November 25, 2016 (Nigeria) Writer: Emmanuel Okomanyi Runtime: 1 hour : 58 minutes. 76 is a 2016 Nigerian historical fiction drama film directed by Izu Ojukwu and produced by Adonaijah Owiriwa, Izu Ojukwu, and Tonye Princewill. It tells a story of love and betrayal against ...
76 (2016) directed by Izu Ojukwu • Reviews, film
Shot in 16mm, complementing the 70s time period. The film tells the story, interestingly from the women's perspective, of the 1976 military coup in Nigeria. I'm Nigerian and of course any opportunity to learn about our history I am keen. It was my mum who actually heard about this historical drama and came to me asking to watch it.
"76" is a well-made, engrossing historical drama
produced by Adonaijah Owiriwa and Izu Ojukwu and directed by Izu Ojukwu, the anticipated Nollywood movie, undefined at Intercontinental Hotel, Lagos, Nigeria. "76" is a meticulously detailed ...
'76': London Review
'76': London Review. By Jonathan Romney 2016-10-17T08:09:00+01:00. Dir: Izu Ojukwu. Nigeria, 2016. 116 mins ... (2007), a multiple African Movie Academy award-winner. While festival slots will be ...
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Now comes "76 Days," an equally harrowing film that goes even further back, observing the struggles of both frightened patients and harried medical workers in Wuhan when the city was placed under a 76-day lockdown. The story of how the film came to be is interesting enough to perhaps one day become the subject of its own movie.
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Chile '76. Chile, 1976. Carmen heads off to her beach house to supervise its renovation. Her husband, children and grandchildren come back and forth during the winter vacation. When the family ...
'76
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Manuela Martelli's expertly crafted character study grounds Chile's political history of resistance in the tale of a bourgeois woman's begrudging radicalization. To title your film after a ...
'76
Visit the movie page for ''76' on Moviefone. Discover the movie's synopsis, cast details and release date. Watch trailers, exclusive interviews, and movie review. Your guide to this cinematic ...
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Chile '76 Review: A Rich Housewife Becomes a Spy in ...
May 3, 2023 4:30 pm. "Chile '76". Courtesy Kino Lorber. A long-retired Red Cross nurse whose only real plans for the winter of 1976 involve redesigning the inside of her family's beach house and ...
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Powered by JustWatch. Calling "Space Station 76" a spoof of 1970s science fiction doesn't do the trick. It's quiet, slow movie that's often funny, sometimes sad, and occasionally uncomfortable. There are belly laughs, many of them concentrated in the office of a robot psychiatrist who barks shrink-speak at its patients; parts of this machine's ...
'76
Check out the exclusive TV Guide movie review and see our movie rating for '76. ... Watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie Now on Amazon Prime Video. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is Now ...
'Chile '76' review: A feminist take on country's troubled past
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Consumed movie review & film summary (2024)
A sense of rhythm or frustrated chemistry might have made a difference in "Consumed," at least enough to stick to the movie's by-the-numbers conclusion. Unfortunately, clumsy and mostly inert dialogue often pre-emptively steps on Beth and Quinn's actions, making it even harder to anticipate whatever comes next.
The Outrun review: "Saoirse Ronan is exceptional in this affecting
Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy. The Outrun opened the 77th ...

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Reviewed online, April 10, 2023. (In Cannes, London, Palm Springs, New Directors/New Films film festivals.) Running time: 95 MINS. (Original title: "1976")

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