“The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” has one overwhelming positive going for it, and that’s the chemistry of the leads Reynolds and Jackson.

The delight of “The Trip to Spain” is getting back with these two gents who seem to relish a relaxing holiday, badgering one another about their different stages of an extended mid-life existential crisis. 

“Baby Driver” is not like any heist movie that you’ve ever seen before. Writer/director Edgar Wright’s meticulousness and mastery takes a keen eye on first viewing to get a hint at the level of fastidious planning that went into every aspect of the film. 

“Churchill” is to its subject what the “The Green Berets” was to the Vietnam War. “Berets” attempted to make a World War Two heroic propaganda in the wrong war. “Churchill” wants to humanise the man and instead devolves into a blatantly misleading revisionist history.

“Song to Song” feels like the memory Malick intended, if he suffered a traumatic brain injury.

Reeves and Bomback may be playing with actors in leotards, and the incredible CGI transformation; but the pleasure of the entire Apes series is that they’re about something. They’re ultimately about the frightening consequence of the human impulse to innovate and explore. They place a fragile humanity in a position that requires empathy and diplomacy, in the face of a threatening circumstance

Wick is the role that Reeves was born for; despite its dependence on the original, “John Wick: Chapter Two” is top shelf revenge as stylish as the protagonist.

Christopher Nolan’s latest film “Dunkirk” is a technical wonder. The jaw-dropping IMAX 70mm cinematography from Hoyte Van Hoytema (who lensed “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” “Her” and “Interstellar”), precision editing from Nolan’s regular collaborator Lee Smith and deafening and terrifying sound editing from Richard King et al create a staggering and immersive experience.

Haneke’s “Happy End” is darkly funny, impeccably made and the performers relish being conducted by a master; however it doesn’t have as clear a drive or fervent punch of his other string of incredible works...

One hopes desperately that this confronting film is an exaggeration - not the ‘ordinary’ experience in Manilla. “Ordinary People,” is not a neo-realist film about working class life, set in a culture of poverty, making a case for redistribution of wealth. The grim reality portrayed is horrific, the moral undertones make it mean. 

“The Wall” is a war movie, make no bones about it. Despite the slick premise, the refreshingly sound logic, the ‘real-time’ experience of the characters and the blistering pace, it presents the conflicted ethics and morality of the American war in Afghanistan.

Aki Kaurismäki’s “The Other Side of Hope” is the kind of film about asylum seekers that one imagines Rainer Werner Fassbinder would have made.

“Transformers: The Last Knight” is a bad film – in fact, it’s one of the most ludicrous films ever made.

“Ingrid Goes West” is filmmakers Smith and Spicer going ‘behind the filter’ on social media obsession and disarming you with humour. You’ll laugh, you’ll cringe, but don't you dare look at your phone.

“Manifesto” may have been a vibrant, disorientating and fascinating art installation. As a film, it’s an agonising, mind numbing slog.

“Australia Day” is stuck in an interconnecting formula that propagates stereotypes, and wedges gaps between racial tribes that no closing montage can correct.

Welcome to my weird and wonderful experiences of the Sydney Film Festival 2017. 

Director Benedict Andrews and writer David Harrower (who adapted the film from his own play “Blackbird”) create an all round uncomfortable viewing experience  with “Una.” Wrestling with the subject of statutory rape and the ambivalent agency of a girl on the edge of womanhood.

The first stanza of “We Don’t Need A Map” is a furious, energetic, punk rock f*ck you, that kicks the audiences arse with a collision of styles and content.

Whitney Houston. A once in a generation voice. A movie star. A household name. A Diva whose brightness was extinguished by drug addiction at the all too early age of 48. It's almost shocking to consider that despite Houston's rise to a stratospheric level of fame in the 80s and early 90s that by the time of her death, she'd retreated into a level of obscurity. Nick Broomfield and co-director  Rudi Dolezal attempt to resurrect her.