FILM OF THE WEEK

GONE GIRL (18, 149 mins)

Thriller/Romance. Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Carrie Coon, Neil Patrick Harris, Kim Dickens, Patrick Fugit, Tyler Perry, Missi Pyle, Sela Ward, David Clennon, Lisa Beth, Emily Ratajkowski, Scoot McNairy. Director: David Fincher. Released: October 2 (UK & Ireland)

Ignorance is bliss when it comes to Gone Girl.

If, like me, you haven't read Gillian Flynn's 2012 psychological thriller and you know nothing of the serpentine twists that propelled the novel to the top of the bestsellers list then jealously guard your cluelessness.

There's an undeniable delight watching Flynn wrong-foot us with this spiky satire on media manipulation and the glossy facade of celebrity marriages.

When the central characters promise to love, honour and obey, till death do them part, one of them takes that vow very seriously.

Admittedly, you have to dig deep beneath the surface of David Fincher's polished film to find the jet black humour but it's there, walking hand-in-hand with sadism and torture that propel the narrative towards its unconventional denouement.

The film version of Gone Girl is distinguished by a career-best performance from Rosamund Pike as the pretty wife, who vanishes without trace on her fifth wedding anniversary and is presumed dead at the hands of her handsome husband (Ben Affleck).

Pike has to plumb the depths of human emotion in a demanding and complex role, by turns brittle and steely, terrified and driven.

She's almost certain to earn her first Oscar nomination.

In stark contrast, Affleck is solid but little more as the spouse who pleads his ignorance but hides secrets from the people he adores.

As battles of the sexes go, it's a resolutely one-sided skirmish.

On the morning of his anniversary, Nick Dunne (Affleck) calls detectives Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) and Jim Gilpin (Patrick Fugit) to his home.

There are signs of a struggle and his wife Amy (Pike) is missing.

Nick's sister Margo (Carrie Coon), who has never liked Amy, assures her sibling that everything will be fine.

"Whoever took her's bound to bring her back," she quips cattily.

Nick and Amy's distraught parents (David Clennon, Lisa Beth) front a high-profile media campaign to secure the safe return of "amazing Amy".

In the glare of the spotlight, fractures appear in the Dunnes' marriage and police and public question Nick's innocence.

Gone Girl holds our attention for the majority of the bloated 149-minute running time, with a couple of lulls and a disjointed final act.

Pike's mesmerising theatrics light up the screen and there is strong support from Neil Patrick Harris as Amy's creepy old flame.

Fincher's direction is lean, complemented by snappy editing and a discordant score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who won the Oscar for their music to The Social Network.

Once you regain your balance from Flynn pulling the rug from under your feet, this is a slick yet slightly underwhelming whodunit that doesn't quite scale the dizzy heights of shock and suspense previously achieved by Jagged Edge, The Usual Suspects or indeed, Fincher's 2005 film, Se7en.

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DOLPHIN TALE 2 (U, 107 mins)

Family/Drama/Romance. Nathan Gamble, Cozi Zuehlsdorff, Harry Connick Jr, Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman, Kris Kristofferson, Austin Highsmith, Austin Stowell, Tom Nowicki. Director: Charles Martin King.Released: October 3 (UK & Ireland)

Released in 2011, Dolphin Tale fictionalised the incredible true story of a bottlenose called Winter, who was snared in a crab trap in Florida and lost her tail.

The plucky mammal was rushed to nearby Clearwater Marine Hospital where dedicated staff rehabilitated Winter by fitting her with a silicon and plastic tail similar to prosthetics worn by human amputees.

The dolphin's remarkable recovery and her subsequent celebrity have ensured a steady stream of visitors to Clearwater, where Winter now shares a tank with another bottlenose called Hope.

Filmmaker Charles Martin Smith, who captained the original film, clearly fell in love with Winter because he writes and directs this uplifting yet wholly unnecessary sequel.

Young audiences will happily wade through pools of sugary sentiment in order to enjoy heart-warming scenes with the dolphins and a stranded sea turtle christened Mavis.

Parents, however, won't find a great deal to buoy their interest besides footage during the end credits of two real-life rescues that inspired Smith's flimsy script.

Several years have passed since Sawyer Nelson (Nathan Gamble) rescued plucky dolphin Winter with the help of Dr Clay Haskett (Harry Connick Jr) and prosthetics expert Dr Cameron McCarthy (Morgan Freeman).

The teenager now works at Clearwater Marine Aquarium (CMA) with Clay's spunky daughter Hazel (Cozi Zuehlsdorff), his grown-up cousin Kyle (Austin Stowell) and trainer Phoebe (Austin Highsmith).

Families flock to CMA to see Winter, which delights aquarium owner Phillip J Hordern (Tom Nowicki), who hopes to expand the site.

Sadly, those plans are put on hold when Winter's companion, an elderly dolphin called Panama, dies and leaves the plucky bottlenose without a pool mate.

Under regulations, Winter cannot be housed alone and a visiting inspector (played by director Smith), tells Clay, "I'm giving you 30 days to correct the problem."

The race begins to find another companion for Winter before Clearwater is forced to give up its beloved dolphin.

Meanwhile, Sawyer realises his feelings for Hazel run deeper than friendship and the lad considers leaving Winter for three months to participate in a prestigious marine biology programme aboard a tall ship.

Dolphin Tale 2 serves no dramatic purpose other than to reignite interest in CMA and its real-life star attraction.

Gamble is a likeable if somewhat bland protagonist and the nascent romance with Zuehlsdorff remains chaste.

Connick Jr flashes his dazzling pearly whites to distract our attention from the hoary dialogue while Freeman makes fleeting appearances as the crotchety prosthetics wizard, who tells one pre-pubescent member of CMA staff, "I've got jars of peanut butter older than you."

Given the product's short shelf life, his character may not survive for a third splash in the dolphin pool.

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DRAFT DAY (15, 107 mins)

Drama/Romance. Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner, Chadwick Boseman, Denis Leary, Frank Langella, Tom Welling, Sam Elliott, Ellen Burstyn, Josh Pence, Arian Foster, Patrick St Esprit. Director: Ivan Reitman. Released: October 3 (UK & Ireland)

In late spring, millions of Americans are glued to prime-time television for the year's biggest lottery result.

The prizes aren't money but college football players and the gamblers are the 32 National Football League (NFL) teams, who compete in two conferences each season for the ultimate prize: the Super Bowl.

Comprising seven nail-biting rounds, the NFL draft is the selection process for these teams to identify and anoint the rising stars of the future.

The order of selection is based on the previous season's results: the lowest ranked teams choose first and the runner-up and winner of Super Bowl choose last to ensure parity.

Before and during the draft, owners and coaches can secretly bargain with rival teams for a better position in the pecking order to ensure they get the player(s) they want.

Ivan Reitman's lightweight sports drama unfolds on the day of the 2014 NFL draft and uses this high-stakes game of barter, bluff and tactical one-upmanship as a backdrop to one man's rise from the ashes.

Kevin Costner plays Sonny Weaver Jr, general manager of the Cleveland Browns, whose father died a week before the draft.

Sonny is in a secret relationship with Browns lawyer Ali Parker (Jennifer Garner), who is pregnant with their first child - good news Sonny has kept hidden from his acid-tongued mother (Ellen Burstyn).

The Browns have seventh pick in the draft but Tom Michaels (Patrick St Esprit), general manager of the Seattle Seahawks who have first pick, agrees to sell that prime spot in exchange for Weaver's first round picks for the next three years.

Team owner Anthony Molina (Frank Langella) pressurises Sonny to take the deal and social media goes into meltdown with speculation that the Browns will select much fancied quarterback, Bo Callahan (Josh Pence).

Browns head coach Vince Penn (Denis Leary) is furious about the terms of the deal, which means he won't get his choice, running back Ray Jennings (Arian Foster).

As the clock ticks down to the Browns' first pick, Sonny face a battle of head versus heart to placate fans and his staff.

Draft Day is solid and undemanding entertainment, entwining soap opera plot strands around a fictionalised running of the highpoint of every college football player's season.

Costner doesn't break sweat while co-stars scream and shout, not least Langella as the publicity-hungry head honcho, who expects to get his way.

The romantic subplot with Garner lightly simmers but never comes close to the boil.

Scriptwriters Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman keep the tone light and don't saturate the screen with sporting terminology so British audiences, who prefer their football played by 11 men without helmets, can digest various twists and turns without excessive head-scratching.

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DRACULA UNTOLD (15, 92 mins)

Released: October 3 (UK & Ireland)

The bloodsucking monster, birthed in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, is given a new lease of life and a new origin in Gary Shore's horror thriller.

Prince Vlad III Tepes (Luke Evans) of Transylvania has brought peace and prosperity to his people but that is all threatened by scheming Sultan Mehmed II (Dominic Cooper).

He decrees that 1,000 of the kingdom's young men, including Vlad's beloved son Ingeras (Art Parkinson), must join his army.

Desperate to protect his boy as well as his beautiful wife Mirena (Sarah Gadon), Prince Vlad seeks enlightenment in Broken Tooth Mountain, home to the mystical sorcerer Caligula (Charles Dance).

This master of the dark arts forges a deadly pact with Vlad, promising the prince superhuman strength and courage.

In exchange, Vlad will be cursed to hanker for human blood for the rest of his days - an insatiable thirst that slowly corrupts Vlad and threatens everyone he holds dear.

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BANG BANG! (Certificate and running time TBC)

Released: October 2 (UK, selected cinemas)

Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif headline Siddharth Raj Anand's globe-trotting, action-packed Bollywood remake of the Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz thriller Knight And Day.

Harleen Sahni (Kaif) is a lowly bank clerk, who craves some excitement in her humdrum life. She gets just that when she unexpectedly crosses paths with Rajveer Nanda (Roshan), who claims to be an elite spy in the middle of a diabolical international plot.

Rajveer asks Harleen to help clear his besmirched name and she is soon embroiled in a series of gunfights and adrenaline-pumping car and bike chases.

Marked for death by virtue of her association with Rajveer, Harleen no longer knows who she can trust and as the net closes in on the spy, she must make a life-altering decision about where her loyalties lie.

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HAIDER (15, 160 mins)

Released: October 2 (UK, selected cinemas)

Vishal Bhardwaj directs and co-writes this re-imagining of Shakespeare's bloody tragedy Hamlet, transplanting the murder and chicanery to modern day Kashmir.

Haider (Shahid Kapoor) is tormented by the disappearance of his father (Irrfan Khan) and the speed with which his uncle (Kay Kay Menon) assumes control of the family and takes his sister-in-law Ghazala (Tabu) as his wife.

One night, Haider meets his father's ghost, who reveals his true demise at the uncle's hands. T

he murdered patriarch demands revenge and fashions Haider as the instrument of his retribution.

poor Haider is driven to the brink of madness by his father's disclosure, which puts intolerable strain on his burgeoning romance with a pretty journalist called Arshia (Shraddha Kapoor).

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WILL AND TESTAMENT (12A, 95 mins)

Released: October 3 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)

On March 14, 2014, Tony Benn died at home surrounded by his family and in the days that followed, ministers past and present from across the political spectrum paid tribute to a man who was both the longest serving Labour MP in history and one of the UK's most popular politicians.

Skip Kite's documentary offers a candid glimpse into the life of Benn through interviews with the man himself, augmented with excerpts from his personal, photographic and film archive.

These clips illustrate the issues that affected Benn during his cabinet tenure under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, and in more recent times when he became an outspoken and passionate president of the Stop The War Coalition.

On October 5, there will be a special screening of Kite's film, followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A streamed live to selected cinemas across the UK and Ireland.

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VIOLETTE (15, 139 mins)

Released: October 3 (UK, selected cinemas)

Martin Provost's biographical drama, set predominantly in the aftermath of the Second World War, charts the strong emotional bond between two women, who changed the course of French literature.

Violette Leduc (Emmanuelle Devos) is born out of wedlock in 1907 and grows up impoverished and unloved. She lives with Maurice Sachs (Olivier Py), who nurtures Violette's passion for writing. In post-war Saint-Germain des-Pres, Violette meets Simone de Beauvoir (Sandrine Kiberlain) and develops a crush on the intellectual, lavishing the object of her affections with flowers and - trustingly - a copy of her debut book.

In return, Simone introduces Viollette to the upper echelons of French culture and to icons including Jean Genet (Jacques Bonaffe).

Subsequently, Violette's memoir La Batarde becomes a bestseller, allowing her to fulfil her dream of making a comfortable living from her writing.

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YOU AND THE NIGHT (18, 98 mins)

Released: October 3 (UK, selected cinemas)

The promise of sex sparks a series of hallucinogenic imaginings in Yann Gonzalez's ambitious and dreamlike fantasy.

Young lovers Ali (Kate Moran) and Mathias (Niels Schneider) head outside their apartment with their transvestite maid (Nicolas Maury) for a breath of fresh air before an orgy with strangers.

Back inside the cosy dwelling, the other participants - the Slut (Julie Bremond), the Stud (Eric Cantona), the Teen (Alain Fabien Delon) and the Star (Fabienne Babe) - arrive in dribs and drabs.

Sexual mind games play out as these strangers grapple with desires and insecurities before they bare everything in the dark.

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THE GREAT BRITISH TRAIN ROBBERY - A TALE OF TWO THIEVES (15, 69 mins)

Released: October 3 (UK, selected cinemas)

In August 8, 1963, a 15-strong gang of robbers led by Bruce Reynolds held up a Royal Mail train bound for London and stole £2.6 million, the bulk of which has never been found.

The audacious heist was planned using inside information from a shadowy informant known as The Ulsterman.

Over 50 years after the robbery, documentary filmmaker Chris Long reveals the identity of the mythical Ulsterman by interviewing gang member Gordon Goody on record for the first time.

Goody recalls the events of that fateful night, revealing all of the fascinating facts including the name of The Ulsterman, who vanished without trace with his share of the booty and has been the subject of intense scrutiny by the public and law enforcement for decades.

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STILL THE ENEMY WITHIN (15, 113 mins)

Released: October 3 (UK, selected cinemas)

In the feel-good comedy Pride, which was released last month, a group of gay and lesbian activists support the miners during the 1984-1985 strike.

Owen Gower's fascinating documentary offers a raw and revealing account of Britain's longest strike through the eyes of some of the people who lived through it including Joyce Sheppard, Norman Strike and Paul Symonds.

Using a mosaic of interviews and rare archive footage, some of which has never been seen before, Gower's film explores the trials and tribulations of the group of miners and supporters, who were on the frontline of the strike for an entire year and were labelled "the Enemy Within" by Margaret Thatcher.

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LE JOUR SE LEVE (PG, 90 mins)

Released: October 3 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)

A rerelease of Marcel Carne's poetic 1939 thriller about a murderer, who is besieged by armed police in his apartment, with no apparent way out.

Foundry worker Francois (Jean Gabin) shoots and kills Valentin (Jules Berry) then hides in his room at a guest house.

In no time at all, police have surrounded the building but Francois' barricades hold firm, keeping the authorities at bay.

As he puffs nervously on cigarettes, trying to think of a way out of his predicament, Francois thinks back to his relationships with two women - florist Francoise (Jacqueline Laurent) and Clara (Arletty) - who were both romantically entangled with Valentin in the past.

It transpires that Valentin was insanely jealous of Francois and had decided to confront the foundry worker and perhaps warn him off with a gun.

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LUNA (15, 106 mins)

Released: October 3 (UK, selected cinemas)

A weekend retreat offers two couples a chance to heal in Dave McKean's drama, which melds live action and animation.

Dean (Michael Maloney) and his younger girlfriend Freya (Stephanie Leonidas) live in a remote house on the coast.

They welcome Dean's art school friends, Grant (Ben Daniels) and Christina (Dervla Kirwan), who have been scarred by grief and elected to retreat from the world.

In these picturesque surroundings, Grant and Christina are persuaded to exorcise their demons and lift the shroud of grief.

In so doing, Christina experiences wondrous visions that are a balm to her deep emotional wounds.

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WITHNAIL AND I (15, 103 mins)

Released: October 3 (UK, selected cinemas)

Richard E Grant and Paul McGann headline a most welcome reissue of Bruce Robinson's seminal 1987 comedy, playing the eponymous failed actors, whose life of squalor and self-loathing is slowly wearing them down.

When the lascivious Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths) offers the friends the use of his countryside retreat, they readily accept but the friends are unprepared for the attentions of crazy locals and Monty himself, who has an anecdote and a bon mot for every occasion: "I can never touch meat until it's cooked. As a youth I used to weep in butcher's shops."

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THE REWRITE (12A, 107 mins)

Released: October 9 (UK & Ireland)

Hugh Grant hopes to reclaim his crown as the bumbling king of the romantic comedy in this frothy confection, directed by Marc Lawrence, who previously worked with the British actor on Music And Lyrics.

Screenwriter Keith Michaels (Grant) used to be the toast of Hollywood.

In 1998, he won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay and the industry bowed down at his altar, lavishing him with adulation.

Many years have passed and his marriage has collapsed and he is virtually penniless. So he reluctantly takes a job teaching a screenwriting course at Binghamton University in New York.

Among his students is feisty single mother Holly Carpenter (Marisa Tomei). They fall in love and the whirlwind romance compels Keith to rewrite his bleak future.

 

UK FILM TOP 10

1 The Equalizer

2 Billy Elliott

3 The Boxtrolls

4 What we Did on Our Holiday

5 A Walk Among The Tombstones

6 Pride

7 Lucy

8 Guardians Of The Galaxy

9 The Riot Club

10 Sex Tapes

(Chart courtesy of Cineworld.co.uk)