Latest news with #politicalThriller
Times
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Heads of State review — stupendously idiotic but eminently watchable
Who knew that the annual summits of intergovernmental forums and transnational military alliances could be so exciting? And yet only months after the popcorn flick G20 gave us the gun-toting US president Viola Davis breaking bones in a ballgown during a Cape Town-set shoot-'em-up, we're now over in Trieste for a Nato summit that serves as a backdrop for an all-action buddy comedy. The twist here is that the two bickering protagonists are the UK and US heads of state — although the better title would have been The Special Relationship (taken, alas, by Peter Morgan's Blair-Bush film from 2010). Idris Elba plays British PM Sam Clarke, a cautious, rule-abiding politician who's suffering a conspicuous Starmer-like slump in the polls and finds himself 'increasingly embattled' in Westminster. John Cena, meanwhile, is President Will Derringer, a crass US populist and Clarke's ostensible nemesis. Derringer is a former Hollywood actor who speaks from the gut and is effectively clueless on global politics. If only there were some sort of violent yet localised crisis that would plunge both men into action and allow them to learn the value of oppositional character traits and the fundamental importance of the Nato alliance while also snapping necks, machinegunning faceless henchmen and leaping from exploding helicopters over downtown Warsaw. Step forward Paddy Considine and a strangulated accent as Russian arms dealer Viktor Gradov (he says 'Qui-yet yir math!!' for 'Shut your mouth'), a lethal psychopath nurturing a grudge against Nato who kicks off the nonstop narrative boom-bang-a-bang by blowing Air Force One out of the sky. • Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews It is stupendously idiotic yet eminently watchable. Elba is delightfully dyspeptic throughout and takes several potshots at the nonsense around him, noting wryly, 'I like actual cinema.' He shares credible romantic chemistry with Priyanka Chopra Jonas as an MI6 bruiser and former paramour called Noel Bisset — there was possibly a better movie in their story. The Russian film-maker Ilya Naishuller (Nobody) directs from a screenplay that's co-written by Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec (Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol) and pillories 'America First' politics while also hammering pro-Nato messaging. 'If Nato falls, there's no more backstop against despots and dictators,' one of Derringer's panic-stricken aides warns. Meanwhile, back in the exploding helicopter …★★★☆☆12, 116minOn Prime Video Times+ members can enjoy two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman each Wednesday. Visit to find out more. Which films have you enjoyed at the cinema recently? Let us know in the comments and follow @timesculture to read the latest reviews
Screen Geek
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Screen Geek
Netflix Brings Back Canceled Series After 5 Years
Netflix is home to a wide variety of films and shows that subscribers have been enjoying for many years now. Of course, like any other streaming service, the availability of different titles depends on licensing and other issues that create temporary windows to watch said titles. Now Netflix has managed to bring back one canceled series after five years. The series, which originally ran on ABC from 2012 to 2018, lasted for a total of seven seasons. It quickly turned into a critical and ratings hit, and as a result, it led to as many as 124 episodes across its run. Fans were originally able to watch all of these episodes via Netflix for quite some time from 2014 to 2020. Subscribers no doubt became comfortable with having the series to stream and watch as much as they wanted during this time. With five years having passed since then, however, it certainly became a missed title for many. Now it's returning to Netflix with all seven seasons once again available to stream. The series, titled Scandal , is a political thriller series which originally aired on ABC. Kerry Washington starred in the show as Olivia Pope, a character based on the real-life George H. W. Bush administration press aide Judy Smith. Additionally, Smith even served as a co-executive producer on the series, assisting in its faithfulness to the real-world situations that led to its engaging drama. For subscribers that either want to revisit Scandal or those that have never seen it, this certainly makes for a great time to do so. Scandal earned numerous awards during its run and it's continued to be a critically-acclaimed series, so if you're looking for something to watch on Netflix, then this very well could be it. Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional updates regarding the latest trending titles available on streaming platforms including Netflix. As for now, subscribers can finally watch Scandal on the streaming platform for the first time in five years.
CNN
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Hollywood Minute: Bruce Springsteen biopic first look
Jeremy Allen White steps behind the mic as Springsteen, 'The Waterfront' debuts, and Kathryn Bigelow's new political thriller. Douglas Hyde reports.
CNN
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Hollywood Minute: Bruce Springsteen biopic first look
Jeremy Allen White steps behind the mic as Springsteen, 'The Waterfront' debuts, and Kathryn Bigelow's new political thriller. Douglas Hyde reports.
BBC News
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
The Secret Agent review: Kleber Mendonça Filho's 'stylish and vibrant political thriller' could be an Oscars contender
Set in the military dictatorship of 1970s Brazil, this buzzy crime drama, which has premiered in Cannes, "makes up in pulpy excitement what it lacks in subtlety", and "bursts with sex, shoot-outs and sleazy hitmen". One of the biggest sensations of this year's awards season was I'm Still Here, an Oscar-nominated drama about the cruelty of the military dictatorship in 1970s Brazil. Now there's another film with the same subject matter – and it, too, could make a splash when awards season rolls around again. That's not to say that The Secret Agent is quite as sensitive as I'm Still Here, but Kleber Mendonça Filho's stylish and vibrant political thriller makes up in pulpy excitement what it lacks in subtlety. Set in the northeastern city of Recife during the raucous week of carnival celebrations, it bursts with sex and shoot-outs, sleazy hitmen and vintage cars – and it features a severed human leg which is found in the belly of a shark. You'd have to assume that Quentin Tarantino is already the film's number-one fan. Still, for all its brightly coloured, grindhouse flashiness, The Secret Agent is rooted in the real anxieties and tragedies of ordinary citizens. Indeed, its hero isn't a secret agent at all, even if Wagner Moura (Civil War, Narcos) is as tall, dark and handsome as any of cinema's super-spies. He plays the mild-mannered Marcelo, who is first seen driving into Recife in his yellow Volkswagen Beetle. It's about an hour before his identity and back story are revealed – The Secret Agent doesn't go anywhere in a hurry – but we eventually learn that he is a widowed academic who objected to a government grandee's attempts to steal his patented research. A big mistake. Marcelo now plans to reunite with his young son, who has been living with his in-laws, and to obtain the documents he needs to leave the country. In the meantime, he works undercover in a public records office, where he hopes to find even a shred of official evidence of his late mother's existence, and he stays in a dissidents' safe house overseen by a wonderfully chatty seventy-something mother hen (Tânia Maria). Even before he reaches Recife, Marcelo happens upon a corpse on a petrol station forecourt, which no one has got around to removing, so he isn't naïve about life in what an opening caption waspishly calls "a period of great mischief". But he is shocked when he hears that his old adversary has hired two assassins to track him down, and he is appalled by the amorality of the local police chief (Robério Diógenes). Filho and his cast have a gift for creating characters who are either movingly honourable or grotesquely evil. The police chief falls into the latter category. When he reads a newspaper headline stating that 91 people have died during the carnival, he cheerily bets that the total will soon reach triple figures. Despite all the danger and corruption in the humid air, Marcelo has an amused tourist's eye for Recife's eccentric goings on. He laughs in disbelief at a cat with two faces, at his son's obsession with seeing Jaws at the cinema, at the number of people having sex in public places, and at a surreal urban legend about the aforementioned severed leg hopping back to life and kicking the men in a cruising ground. For some viewers, The Secret Agent will have a few of these humorous detours too many. Running at more than two-and-a-half hours, it rambles here and there, hanging out with the numerous characters who dream of escaping from Brazil, like the patrons of Rick's Café in Casablanca. More like this:• Revenge thriller is favourite for top Cannes prize• Gay romance The History of Sound is 'too polite'• The 'dazzling centre' of Wes Anderson's new film But one of the film's key themes is the question of what is remembered and what is forgotten, and Filho, who grew up in Recife, seems intent on putting all sorts of quirky details on celluloid lest they be erased forever. As well as imbuing his hardboiled espionage yarn with richness and comedy, these lovingly realised period details add to the quiet melancholy that Moura radiates: one way or another, Marcelo won't be in Brazil to enjoy these sights for much longer. Anyway, just when The Secret Agent seems to be drifting too far from its central plot, it jolts back into focus, as the hitmen dump a body off a bridge, or an enigmatic contact promises to forge Marcelo's passport. An expertly choreographed chase through the city streets makes for a superb, bloody climax, but, as in I'm Still Here, there are still haunting questions to be answered and mysteries to be solved. For one thing, whose leg was that in the shark's belly, anyway? ★★★★☆ -- For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
