Skip to main content

London Film Festival · 2015

London Film Festival 2015

Thrill

Programme

15 films · 8 reviews

Jump to a film

Assassination (Am-sal)

uring occupation by the Japanese army in 1933, the Korean resistance hires three professional killers to strike back against the enemy.

(Country: South Korea; Year: 2015; Director: Choi Dong-hoon; Writer: Choi Dong-hoon, Lee Ki-cheol; Stars: Gianna Jun, Lee Jung-jae, Ha Jung-woo)

Beeba Boys

Immigrant Sikh gangs battle for supremacy in Vancouver.

(Country: Canada; Year: 2015; Director: Deepa Mehta; Writer: Deepa Mehta; Stars: Randeep Hooda, Gulshan Grover, Ali Momen, Sarah Allen, Waris Ahluwalia, Steve Dhillon, Gabe Grey, Ali Kazmi, Jag Bal, Gia Sandhu, Paul Gross, Balinder Johal, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Dileep Rao, Samir Amarshi)

Being Evel

Review preview for Being Evel

This is very much a warts and all portrait, but in the process it brings us much closer to its subject, feeds a depth of appreciation many fans of those stunt shows will not have felt before.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
An candid portrait of American icon Robert "Evel" Knievel and his legacy.

(Country: US; Year: 2015; Director: Daniel Junge; Writer: Davis Coombe, Daniel Junge; Stars: George Hamilton, Johnny Knoxville)

Full review

Guilty (Talvar)

Review preview for Guilty

One of the bleakest whodunnits to grace our screens for some time, for all its wit and intermittent playfulness, this slice of Noida noir is full of compromised characters.

Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
Police thriller based on a real-life murder case that caused international controversy.

(Country: India; Year: 2015; Director: Meghna Gulzar; Writer: Vishal Bhardwaj; Stars: Irrfan Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Neeraj Kabi, Sohum Shah, Atul Kumar, Gajraj Rao, Ayesha Parveen, Tabu)

Full review

The Ones Below

Review preview for The Ones Below

There is potential in the scenario and a game cast, but Farr's film is hobbled by some clunky execution and tonal uncertainty.

Owen Van Spall · 3 out of 5
When a strange couple move in downstairs, a married pair find their happy home becomes something far more sinister.

(Country: UK; Year: 2015; Director: David Farr; Writer: David Farr; Stars: Natasha Alderslade, Laila Alj, Laura Birn, Grace Calder, Stephen Campbell Moore, Tuyen Do, Jonathan Harden, Christos Lawton, David Morrissey, Sam Pamphilon, Clémence Poésy, Robert Roman Ratajczak, Blaise Simmons-Johnson)

Full review

Rattle The Cage (Zinzana)

A former alcoholic wakes up in a jail cell with no ID and finds himself at the mercy of a homicidal killer masquerading as a sheriff.

(Country: United Arab Emirates, Jordan; Year: 2015; Director: Majid Al Ansari; Writer: Majid Alansari, Nidal Morra, Lane Skye, Ruckus Skye, Rami Yasin; Stars: Ali Suliman, Ahd, Saleh Bakri, Eyad Hourani, Ali Al-Jabri, Mansoor Alfeeli, Yasa, Omar Abdulhamid, Abdalla Bu Abed)

Remember

Review preview for Remember

Atom Egoyan's terrifically paced episodic thriller Remember is hard to forget.

Anne-Katrin Titze · 4 out of 5
Zev has a mission: to avenge family, murdered 70 years ago by a Nazi guard who lives under an assumed identity in America.

(Country: Canada, Germany; Year: 2015; Director: Atom Egoyan; Writer: Benjamin August; Stars: Christopher Plummer, Dean Norris, Martin Landau, Henry Czerny, Jürgen Prochnow, Bruno Ganz, Natalie Krill, James Cade, Peter DaCunha, Sofia Wells, Duane Murray, Kim Roberts, Sugith Varughese, T.J. McGibbon, Janet Porter, Heinz Lieven)

Full review See: Atom Egoyan and Robert Lantos in conversation about Remember , Atom Egoyan in conversation about Remember

Retribution (El desconocido)

A bank executive is told a bomb will go off in his car, unless he can come up with a whole lot of cash.

(Country: Spain, France; Year: 2015; Director: Dani de la Torre; Writer: Alberto Marini; Stars: Luis Tosar, Goya Toledo, Javier Gutiérrez, Pedro Alonso, Elvira Mínguez, Fernando Cayo, Luis Zahera, César Díaz Capilla, Xosé Barato, Carolina Vázquez, Daniel Currás, Ricardo de Barreiro, Camila Bossa, Manuel Menárguez, Paula del Río)

Sherlock Holmes

Early adapation of the detective stories.

(Country: US; Year: 1916; Director: Arthur Berthelet; Writer: William Gillette, HS Sheldon, based on the books by Arthur Conan Doyle; Stars: William Gillette, Marjorie Kay, Ernest Maupain, Edward Fielding, Stewart Robbins, Hugh Thompson, Ludwig Kreiss, Mario Majeroni, William Postance, Chester Beery, Frank Hamilton, Fred Malatesta, Grace Reals, Leona Ball, Burford Hampden)

Steve McQueen: The Man And Le Mans

Review preview for Steve McQueen: The Man And Le Mans

The sadness and the courage and the ambition is here

Angus Wolfe Murray · 4 out of 5
The true story of how a cinema legend would risk almost everything in pursuit of his dream.

(Country: US, UK; Year: 2015; Director: Gabriel Clarke, John McKenna; Stars: Steve McQueen, Chad McQueen, Neile Adams, John Sturges, Lee Katzin, Alan Trustman, Jonathan Williams)

Full review

The Survivalist

A man living in a post-apocalyptic time of starvation is threatened when two starving women stumble across his cabin and demand to stay.

(Country: UK; Year: 2015; Director: Stephen Fingleton; Writer: Stephen Fingleton, Stephen Fingleton; Stars: Mia Goth, Martin McCann, Andrew Simpson, Barry Ward, Douglas Russell, Olwen Fouere, Ryan McParland, Ciaran Flynn, Hussina Raja, Dexter Louca Godfrey, Caitlin Deeds)

Victoria (My Name Is Victoria)

Review preview for Victoria

Perhaps because of the improvisation - although surely they must have rehearsed like crazy - even when the plot threatens to become contrived, the characters remain true to themselves.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Adventures of a woman after she meets a group of young lads, over the course of a night.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2015; Director: Sebastian Schipper; Writer: Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Sebastian Schipper; Stars: Frederick Lau, Franz Rogowski, Laia Costa, Max Mauff, Burak Yigit, Nadja Laura Mijthab)

Full review

Warlock

Review preview for Warlock

Dmytryk keeps it all ticking along nicely with the assurance of an old pro, while giving all the central relationships and subtler nuances room to breathe.

Jeff Robson · 4 out of 5
Restored Western. A town terrorised by a rancher’s thugs hires a professional gunfighter to bring order.

(Country: US; Year: 1959; Director: Edward Dmytryk; Writer: Robert Alan Aurthur, based on the novel by Oakley Hall; Stars: Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn, Dorothy Malone, Dolores Michaels, Wallace Ford, Tom Drake, Richard Arlen, DeForest Kelley, Regis Toomey, Vaughn Taylor, Don Beddoe, Whit Bissell, Bartlett Robinson, Robert Adler)

Full review

The Wave (Bølgen)

Review preview for The Wave

This is a film that should be watched on as big a screen as possible, but even on a smaller one, the tsunami is stunning.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
Seismic rumblings in the Norwegian fjords threaten to start a chain reaction that will destroy the local area.

(Country: Norway; Year: 2015; Director: Roar Uthaug; Writer: John Kåre Raake, Harald Rosenløw-Eeg; Stars: Kristoffer Joner, Thomas Bo Larsen, Fridtjov Såheim, Ane Dahl Torp, Jonas Hoff Oftebro, Arthur Berning, Edith Haagenrud-Sande, Laila Goody, Lado Hadzic, Eili Harboe, Herman Bernhoft, Tom Larsen, Mette Agnete Horn, Silje Breivik, Tyra Holmen)

Full review

Wednesday 04:45

A life's work becomes a prison for jazz club owner Stelios when a shady Romanian gangster calls in his debts.

(Country: Greece, Germany, Israel; Year: 2015; Director: Alexis Alexiou; Writer: Alexis Alexiou; Stars: Adam Bousdoukos, Mimi Branescu, Christina Dendrinou, Nikol Drizi, Yiorgos Gallos, Kostas Laskos, Stelios Mainas, Maria Nafpliotou, Vagelis Rokos, Spyros Sidiras, Giorgos Symeonidis, Dimitris Tzoumakis)