Beast review – down-and-out MMA fighter film is predictable but still lands punches

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Directed by Tyler Atkins and co-written by Russell Crowe, this Australian feature follows a familiar playbook – but you’ll find yourself surprisingly invested Ah, yes: the promising fighter who could’ve been a contender, could’ve been a champion. But then life intervened: bad decisions were made, promises broken, the wrong paths taken. But what if the past came knocking on his door? What if our long-in-the-tooth hero could have another crack, set things right, get in the ring one more time? To say that Tyler Atkins’ Australian martial arts drama Beast plucks moves from a well-worn playbook is putting it lightly. This is one of those genre films in which nothing surprises in broad terms; it’s the small pivots and deviations that matter. Given the ring of familiarity surrounding everything, I was surprised to find myself as invested in the film as I was, particularly because so many chest-thumping sports movies are already out there, many of which I find about as intellectually engaging ...
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Oppenheimer: sex, death and impending apocalypse – discuss with spoilers

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Christopher Nolan’s film about the godfather of the nuclear bomb is impressive, and Cillian Murphy the perfect man for the job, but do women get a raw deal and is it all too sanitised?

  • This article contains spoilers for Oppenheimer

J Robert Oppenheimer’s apocalyptic legacy has haunted modern politics and culture, but his personal story is not obvious blockbuster material. It would take a film-maker of the talent, and Hollywood heft, of Christopher Nolan to pull it off.

Oppenheimer opened in the US last weekend with a box office haul of $82m, second to Barbie’s gargantuan $162m. The instincts of Nolan, and his backers at Universal Studios, have been rewarded in a way that, hopefully, bodes well for the future of big-budget films about difficult subjects (Nolan isn’t the only purveyor of such work, but there aren’t many around).

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