How to Feed a Dictator review – what was on the menu for some of the world’s most evil men

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Andrew Neel’s documentary contrasts the lavish dishes eaten by heads of repressive states – served by largely unrepentant staff – with the starvation faced by their citizens There are moments in this sly documentary that evoke regular food porn, with crisply lit footage of vegetables being chopped and simmered, meat getting grilled, fat bubbling and browning – all the culinary sizzle is on display. Then there are climactic money shots, obligatory overhead views of the finished product, elegantly garnished, accompanied by text identifying the dish as, say, a Chilean country stew, or a whole roast goat, made precisely to suit the taste of a very specific client. It’s just that the clients these chefs served were despots, including Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Augusto Pinochet and Kim Jong-il. Charles Otonde Odera once prepared a human heart “perfectly” for Amin, though at the time he thought better than to ask where the raw offal came from. Director Andrew Neel and editor Brad Turn...
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Control review: Kevin Spacey’s sarky GPS wants to kill the Home Secretary for sleeping with the PM

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Spacey’s first film since he was cleared for sexual assault makes effective use of his silken voice, but that’s not enough to rescue this wooden and occasionally deranged sci-fi thriller

Kevin Spacey’s redemptive journey of uncancelling steps another millimetre forwards, or sideways, with his somewhat bizarre new role in this low-budget British indie in which, as a disembodied voice, he plays the implacable punisher of other people’s sexual misdemeanours.

It’s actually a decent idea for a single location cat-and-mouse thriller set in a car – similar to, actually maybe better than the idea behind the recent Liam Neeson thriller Retribution. And it was a smart entrepreneurial idea to create a role which Spacey could conveniently record in a studio anywhere in the world. Spacey’s silky, sulky voice saves the film from disaster, just slightly, although there’s nothing he can do about the terribly clunky direction and torpid line-readings from other people.

We are apparently in a future world where tech and AI have made great strides. A besuited man described by other characters as the “British Prime Minister David Addams” gives a speech in a weirdly inexpensive looking function room to a group of people who look as if they have just appeared in The Office Christmas Special. His theme is the overwhelming importance of privacy and afterwards with some bafflingly indiscreet and explicit dialogue makes it very clear to anyone within earshot that he is having a passionate affair with someone described as “the Home Secretary” – whose name is Stella Simmons.

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