Author: The Reviews Hub - Film

Writers: Hideo Jojo and Jiro Sato from the latter’s manga series Director: Hideo Jojo Nameless has just under a ninety-minute running time and behaves like a movie in a hurry. Violent, garish action is pushed forward while nuance and characterisation are nudged to the side. The police are driven to extremes when violence breaks out in a diner. Film footage from security cameras shows a lone attacker stabbing people indiscriminately apparently with his bare hand- a knife is not visible. This provokes one of the investigating officers to wonder whether the attack might be linked to strange events which arose…

Writers: James C. Williamson, J. Hannah Massyn and Sandulela Asanda Director: Meekaaeel Adam This South African postcolonial horror is too drawn out to really provoke a reaction. Heavy on atmosphere, but light on plot, the second half of The Trek, taking place sometime during the mid-1800s, seems mostly composed of slow-mo shots, eking out what little story there is. Rob van Vuuren’s over-the-top performance as an English colonialist doesn’t help matters. Dutch-Afrikaans settler Karel, along with his heavily pregnant wife Jakoba and young daughter Karolina, is crossing the Kalahari Desert to reach, presumably, South Africa to establish a farm. Accompanying…

Writer: Mohammad Ali Hosseini  Director: Hesam Farahmand This Iranian film, showing at this year’s Raindance, explores the desperate measures that poverty can induce people to take. Raha is the daughter of the title, and she sells her hair so that she can afford a laptop, albeit a second-hand one. However, this act sets up a horrifying chain of events, a chain that director Hesam Farahmand unpicks with aplomb. Raha is at university studying animation. Her Apple Mac is vital to her studies and the project she is working on, but as the deadline looms, it is stolen. Her family doesn’t…

Writer and Director: Ryan J. Smith Even those with a passing interest in cinema will know that making a film is a costly business. Last year’s Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning had an estimated production budget of $400 million. Now imagine making a film on a budget of £4,000. And better still, just three days to get that film done. This was a challenge undertaken by screenwriter and director, Ryan J. Smith. Already used to working in the ultra-low budget sphere, Smith has a track record of producing the goods on a shoestring, but importantly, not cutting corners in the…

Writer: Justine Waddell (adapted from Virginia Woolf) Director: Tina Gharavi An all-star cast largely in cameo roles appears to be this film’s major selling point, a disappointing and often narratively confused adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel about a female scientist trying to make her mark in Edwardian Britain. With too many subplots and not quite enough substance there is a feeling in Virginia Woolf’s Night & Day that the film has been plotted by committee as too many different voices pull the story and its characterisation in lots of directions at once, leaving the adaptation in a shallow and unsatisfactory…

Writer: Mark Rozzano Directors: Jacob Young and Trent Garrett With Rian Johnson’s Knives Out series delivering three delicious murder thrillers with an all star cast, it was only a matter of time before others tried to emulate their success. Enter Mark Rozzano’s A Murder Between Friends set in a castle during the reunion of a group of college friends that within minutes is ladelling on the exposition as three couples sit down for a drink sharing old enmities, former relationships and plenty of bitterness. But even better than its TV movie style is the pending arrival of legendary Joan Collins…

Writer and Director: Oisín Mistéil While the FIFA Football World Cup 2026, with its high ticket prices and travel bans on fans and officials from certain countries, seems intent on sowing division, Oisín Mistéil’s documentary about the Mixed Ability Rugby World Cup of 2025 reminds us what sport is really about. Following the preparations of four Irish mixed-ability teams for the World Cup is Spain, Try! certainly embodies the spirit of the motto, ‘it’s not about winning, but about taking part’. That’s not to say that viewers won’t be rooting for the teams, and Richie, from Cork’s Sunday Wells, is…

Writer and Director: Daniel Glenn-Barbour A sensitive and moving exploration of male mental health, grief and suicide, Daniel Glenn-Barbour’s movie The Worth of Life has a deeply considered central narrative, a day in the life of a young man struggling with his mother’s death and whether his own life is enough. Designed as an acted documentary, the film often belies its low budget to build strong characterisation and audience investment in a fly-on-the-wall meets stream of consciousness approach that builds in significance as Tyler’s day plays out. Certain his new documentary will make some much-needed money for his family, other…