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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Bread and Salt review – clarity and rigour as a talented Polish pianist returns to his hometown

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Real-life pianist Tymoteusz Bies and his younger brother Jacek star in Damian Kocur’s extraordinary and intriguing debut

There’s an icy, unforgiving clarity and compositional rigour to this arresting feature debut from Polish film-maker Damian Kocur, made using non-professionals and partly inspired by a violent incident from real life; it won the special jury prize at Venice in 2022.

Real-life Polish pianist Tymoteusz Bies plays Tymek, a high-achieving young man studying piano at Warsaw’s Chopin University of Music. He’s returned for the summer break to his drab home town, perhaps based on Ełk in the north-east, where all the kids he grew up with are heading for useless jobs and humdrum lives. He’s happy to be back with his music teacher mum and his brother Jacek (played by his actual brother Jacek Bies) but is perplexed and irritated by the fact that Jacek, despite his own piano talent, isn’t really working hard to get a musical scholarship, like him.

Jacek seems lazily content to live his life with a local girlfriend in this grim dead-end town, with all its racism, Islamophobia and homophobia, which is directed at a nearby Tunisian kebab shop; its hardworking owners tell Tymek that the traditional Polish welcome of “bread and salt” has not been forthcoming. And Tymek is also coldly resistant to answering Jacek’s questions as to whether he has a girlfriend in Warsaw. But something strange happens; we see how Tymek is rather gratified by his celebrity status here with his old pals; he’s quite content to hang out with them all summer long, playing basketball, listening to them freestyle rapping, and he even laughs along to the racist jokes over the endless beers. He certainly wants to get closer to his brother, but it ends in catastrophe.

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