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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Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose review – mysterious mammal in period hoax yarn

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Peculiar true story of 1930s media sensation becomes an even odder, laboriously serious drama featuring Simon Pegg with Freudian facial hair

Here is a peculiar film based on a peculiar real-life case: the “talking mongoose” hoax that became a newspaper sensation in the 1930s, the crop circle story of its day. The Irvings, a farming family in the Isle of Man, claimed there was a mongoose called Gef in their farmhouse that could speak – although no independent observer ever saw the creature, but only heard its bizarre voice in the walls or under the floorboards. The obvious explanation was close at hand: the daughter of the family made no secret of being a talented ventriloquist.

Despite this, it amused the press to maintain a deadpan attitude to the possibility of “Gef” being real, and there was no shortage of credulous and excitable spiritualists who were excited by the idea. One was the Hungarian-born paranormal investigator Nandor Fodor who came to Man, convinced that Gef was not a con trick precisely, but a manifestation of group hysteria. He is played here with commitment and sincerity by Simon Pegg, sporting tailoring and facial hair like a young Sigmund Freud. Writer-director Adam Sigal imagines an assistant for him: Anne, played by Minnie Driver.

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