Reviews by Andrew Robertson

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase The Blues Away (2021)

  Review preview for Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase The Blues Away

  The kind of film that immediately after watching I find myself trying to determine how I can get it in front of my parents to watch.

  The story of how a Louisiana sharecropper became one of the most influential guitarists of all time
• 
  Two Cents Worth Of Hope (1952)

  Review preview for Two Cents Worth Of Hope

  With a largely amateur cast there is a roughness to a lot of the performance, but it works.

  Love blossoms between a young village boy and the daughter of a wealthy landowner
• 
  Skies Of Lebanon (2020)

  Review preview for Skies Of Lebanon

  A period piece, shot in Cyprus, it's full of detail that shows care and consideration.

  A Swiss woman moves to Lebanon where she falls in love with an astrophysicist but their peace is threatened by the civil war.
• 
  Faceless (2021)

  Review preview for Faceless

  The two basic tenets of documentary - find something interesting, tell its story in an interesting way. Faceless absolutely achieves the former, to the point that it starts to highlight its difficulties in the latter.

  Hong Kong pro-democracy protestors forge political community through anonymity.
• 
  Absolute Denial (2021)

  Review preview for Absolute Denial

  It's not that it's not clever, it's that it runs away with itself.

  Science fiction animation sees a programmer building a super computer off the grid runs into trouble as the AI he's created grows in strength.
• 
  The Gig Is Up (2021)

  Review preview for The Gig Is Up

  There are several places where statistics are given without context, and the background reading is a gloss of imagery.

  Documentary digs into the gig economy.
• 
  Europa (2021)

  Review preview for Europa

  Europa is unrelenting, claustrophobic in the camera's closeness to Kamal.

  Kamal, an Iraqi man trying to enter Europe on foot through the border between Turkey and Bulgaria, is relentlessly pursued through a forest by a group of hunters.
• 
  Laurent Garnier: Off The Record (2021)

  Review preview for Laurent Garnier: Off The Record

  There are scores of interviewed figures, all sorts of tall tales, but the line between biography and hagiography can be a slim one.

  Profile of the godfather of 1990s techno music.
• 
  Bosco (2020)

  Review preview for Bosco

  Every moment of Bosco carries in it the opportunity to reminisce, to feel.

  How does a tiny Italian village of 13 inhabitants connect to a Uruguayan city an ocean away?
• 
  Rebel Dykes (2021)

  Review preview for Rebel Dykes

  A piece that is deeply personal, punk in its aesthetic, and all the more powerful for both.

  Documentary about the underground lesbian scene in London in the Eighties.
• 
  The Deer King (2021)

  Review preview for The Deer King

  Directed by Masashi Ando, this is absolutely gorgeous... For all its beauty though, it labours.

  When a pack of dogs race through a Zol-controlled mine, Van, an enslaved former soldier, and a young girl named Yuna are both bitten, but manage to escape as the sole survivors of the attack. They seek out a simple, peaceful existence in the countryside but the deadly Black Wolf Fever complicates everything.
• 
  Pig (2021)

  Review preview for Pig

  Cage fills the screen even when he does not.

  A truffle hunter who lives alone in the Oregonian wilderness is forced to return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped
• 
  Batman: The Long Halloween Part Two (2021)

  Review preview for Batman: The Long Halloween Part Two

  There's a lot to get through and at times this feels rushed.

  Second part of the animated adventure sees Batman search for a serial killer.
• 
  Free Guy (2021)

  Review preview for Free Guy

  It's entertaining, no doubt.

  A bank teller discovers that he's actually an NPC inside a brutal, open world video game.
• 
  Whelm (2019)

  Review preview for Whelm

  Ed Herrera's cinematography is incredible.

  Set during the Great Depression, two Midwest brothers get tangled in a rivalry between a legendary bank robber and an eccentric young criminal.
• 
  Battle For Afghanistan (2019)

  Review preview for Battle For Afghanistan

  There are some astonishing set pieces.

  A Soviet General refuses to withdraw on time from Afghanistan, because the Mujahedeen are holding his son hostage.
• 
  What We Left Unfinished (2019)

  Review preview for What We Left Unfinished

  The stories are astonishing.

  Story of five unfinished fiction films from Communist-era Afghanistan.
• 
  Rising Wolf (2021)

  Review preview for Rising Wolf

  Despite having a beginning, middle, and finish, with all the exposition and tentative world-building this feels like part of a trilogy.

  A young environmentalist wakes, trapped, kidnapped in the elevator of a super high-rise building at the mercy of her tormentors.
• 
  Night Drive (2021)

  Review preview for Night Drive

  At a breezy 80ish minutes it manages an ending that asks questions of us without indulging too much in the temptation to dig up answers.

  A ride share driver's life is turned upside down after an unexpected series of misfortunes.
• 
  The Suicide Squad (2021)

  Review preview for The Suicide Squad

  I didn't hate it, but if I wanted to watch more than two hours of the undeniably weird doing the inexplicable, The Sparks Brothers is also in cinemas.

  Supervillains Harley Quinn, Bloodsport, Peacemaker and a collection of nutty cons at Belle Reve prison join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X as they are dropped off at the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese.
• 
  The Sound Of Silence (2019)

  Review preview for The Sound Of Silence

  This is a treat of a film.

  A successful "house tuner" in New York City, who calibrates the sound in people's homes in order to adjust their moods, meets a client with a problem he can't solve.
• 
  State Funeral (2019)

  Review preview for State Funeral

  The craft of Loznitsa and his colleagues are in curation as much as carving, in the finding and fitting.

  Documentary based on footage from March 5 - 9, 1953, when the USSR mourned and buried Joseph Stalin.
• 
  Nobody (2021)

  Review preview for Nobody

  For all that there's some gold within it the real treasure is in playfulness.

  A bystander who intervenes to help a woman being harassed by a group of men becomes the target of a vengeful drug lord.
• 
  Black Widow (2021)

  Review preview for Black Widow

  It is entertaining.

  Natasha Romanoff confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises.
• 
  Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One (2021)

  Review preview for Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One

  For fans there's a lot to pick up on, but even casual audiences will be able to keep up.

  Batman forms a pact with the police captain and district attorney in a bid to take down the head of a crime family... only to find he is also dealing with a serial killer.
• 
  Erratum 2037 (2017)

  Review preview for Erratum 2037

  Half as long as Tenet and at least four times as fun.

  After a high school student accidentally intercepts a message from the future, he is kidnapped and sent into the future where he has to stop the mad plans of an evil genius.
• 
  Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

  Review preview for Johnny Mnemonic

  The film still doesn't work, but not for lack of effort expended.

  A courier who transports data in his brain faces a race against time and those who want the information he is carrying.
• 
  Interference (2005)

  Review preview for Interference

  As a historic artefact of past creativity it stands up well.

  When a late-night DJ receives a call, may not be quite all it initially seems.
• 
  Two Bob Mermaid (1996)

  Review preview for Two Bob Mermaid

  There are subtleties here, not least in the ending. Details are small but well scattered, each adding to the tale.

  An Aboriginal girl gains access to the local swimming pool where Aboriginal people are legally denied access because she "passes" as white - and finds herself faced with a choice.
• 
  Girl In The Chair (2015)

  Review preview for Girl In The Chair

  This is a tale that does not start gently, and is unafraid to show its teeth.

  After years of confinement, a teenaged girl escapes her kidnapper and returns to the house of her long-lost family, but her homecoming is far from welcome.
• 
  Green Thoughts (2020)

  Review preview for Green Thoughts

  There are compositions audible and painterly, moments of juxtaposition and superposition, frames that perhaps deserve frames.

  Somewhere in the world there is a remote island. The sea. Lush hills. The impenetrable forest.
• 
  Godzilla Vs. Kong (2021)

  Review preview for Godzilla Vs. Kong

  As much of a mess as the aftermath of its set pieces.

  Two mighty monsters slug it out.
• 
  Sudden Death (2020)

  Review preview for Sudden Death

  Nature not so much red in tooth and claw as death-masqued of the same shade.

  Set in a nature management zone, an investigation of the outdated romantic notions of wilderness and nature.
• 
  Red Aninsri; Or, Tiptoeing On The Still Trembling Berlin Wall (2020)

  Review preview for Red Aninsri; Or, Tiptoeing On The Still Trembling Berlin Wall

  Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke plays with the very basics of film-making to great effect.

  On an undercover spy mission, a trans woman disguises herself as a masculine man to lure a student activist, only to fall in love.
• 
  Genius Loci (2020)

  Review preview for Genius Loci

  Adrien Merigeau's film makes use of a variety of contrasts to shed light on place and personality.

  One night, Reine, a young loner, sees within the urban chaos a mystical oneness that seems alive, like some sort of guide.
• 
  Expensive Shit (2020)

  Review preview for Expensive Shit

  In a festival selection that included a number of feminist works and perspectives this was a standout.

  A Nigerian toilet attendant, desperate for survival, forced to manipulate unsuspecting women for men watching from behind a two-way mirror in a Glasgow club.
• 
  Store Policy (2020)

  Review preview for Store Policy

  Simplicity gives it stark strength.

  Lea begins a summer job as a cashier in a large supermarket chain.
• 
  Home (2012)

  Review preview for Home

  Jack Northover's minimal piano score and Max Bellamy's cinematography both well serve Gleeson's two roles as director and editor.

  A documentary about moving a house.
• 
  Martin Eden (2019)

  Review preview for Martin Eden

  There are diversions into the epistolary, moments of stillness, moments of beauty, and through it all a passion.

  A man struggles to better his circumstances, motivated by his love for a woman from a bourgeois family.
• 
  Boys Night (2019)

  Review preview for Boys Night

  That the skies are Glaswegian grey does not make the eyes below them any less starry, or watery, nor does that overcast overshadow the microcosm below.

  Twelve-year-old Reese must brave the mean and marvellous streets of North East Glasgow to bring his drunken father safely home.
• 
  Betty (2020)

  Review preview for Betty

  Moody and embittered and near unique.

  A little green bird called Bobby is looking for his butter, his partner Betty and for the love that seems to have melted away.
• 
  All Movements Should Kill The Wind (2019)

  Review preview for All Movements Should Kill The Wind

  This is experimental documentary that seeps, sidles, creeps, cannot be washed off.

  Man shapes his environment, which shapes his brain.
• 
  3 Logical Exits (2020)

  Review preview for 3 Logical Exits

  Both neat and strong.

  A sociological meditation on the different 'exits' that young Palestinians choose, in order to cope with life in the refugee camps.
• 
  4x4 (2019)

  Review preview for 4x4

  It's frantic at the fore, but contains some of the most accurate depiction of both boredom and resignation I can recall.

  A petty thief finds himself trapped in a hi-tech car he was boosting.
• 
  iHuman (2019)

  Review preview for iHuman

  iHuman is worthy, and good, but not worthwhile, nor very good.

  Exploring the artificial intelligence revolution and its implications.
• 
  A Girl From Mogadishu (2019)

  Review preview for A Girl From Mogadishu

  A story brought dazzlingly to life by the talents of its veteran cast and crew

  The true story of Ifrah Ahmed, who fled war-torn Somalia in 2006 and became a campaigner against gender based violence and female genital mutilation.
• 
  Radioactive (2019)

  Review preview for Radioactive

  A further challenge is the credibility of the chemistry - it's in two senses that a flame flickers between the Curies, and in both it convinces.

  The story of Marie Curie and her discoveries in physics.
• 
  Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga (2020)

  Review preview for Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga

  There's a very clear fondness here for the subject matter.

  When aspiring musicians Lars and Sigrit are given the opportunity to represent their country at the world's biggest song competition, they finally have a chance to prove that any dream worth having is a dream worth fighting for.
• 
  No More Wings (2019)

  Review preview for No More Wings

  With some variety in subject matter across them, No More Wings shows a flexibility with tone in script that's carried over to other duties behind the camera.

  Two old friends meet up at a favourite childhood haunt.
• 
  The Flood (2019)

  Review preview for The Flood

  This is often made of smaller moments, questions, answers, the unasked, the unsaid.

  A hardened immigration officer decides the fate of a potentially dangerous asylum seeker.