Reviews by James Benefield

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  Mother's Milk (2011)

  Review preview for Mother's Milk

  Less like Rashomon and more like an episode of Eastenders.

  When an elderly matriarch decides to bequeath the family home to a charlatan's cult, resentments among her family come to the fore.
• 
  Some Guy Who Kills People (2011)

  Review preview for Some Guy Who Kills People

  Kevin Corrigan holds it all together with a brooding, anxious performance.

  Released from an asylum, a young man struggles to rebuild his life, but he's still threatened by the high school bullies who caused his breakdown. It's time to make them pay.
• 
  A Matter Of Taste: Serving Up Paul Liebrandt (2010)

  Review preview for A Matter Of Taste: Serving Up Paul Liebrandt

  Director Sally Rowe does a great job with this human side, making a relatively inaccessible subject emotionally engaging and throroughly entertaining.

  Documentary tracing a decade in the career of the British chef.
• 
  The Adopted (2011)

  Review preview for The Adopted

  It's probably the acting that almost saves the film from its histrionic third act

  A fragile new relationship is imperilled when tragedy strikes.
• 
  The Deadly Spawn (1983)

  Review preview for The Deadly Spawn

  What the movie does best is gore and ickiness.

  A toothy alien horror goes on the rampage.
• 
  The Doom Generation (1995)

  Review preview for The Doom Generation

  It's not exactly thought-provoking, but there is a teasing intelligence on display.

  A trio go on a crime spree.
• 
  Mommie Dearest (1981)

  Review preview for Mommie Dearest

  Regardless of your tolerance for high camp and massive hair, you've got to admit it's memorable.

  Controversial story of Joan Crawford, based on the memoirs of her adopted daughter.
• 
  Life, Above All (2010)

  Review preview for Life, Above All

  Director Oliver Shmitz does a good job of balancing the immediate, visible tragedy of the characters we follow with a wider, national problem.

  A 12-year-old girl struggles to protect her family as her stepfather descends into alcoholism and her mother becomes increasingly ill, in a small town full of prejudice and hostility.
• 
  The Woman In The Fifth (2011)

  Review preview for The Woman In The Fifth

  There's half of a good film here, but Pawlikowski approaches his material in a way that undermines the rationale and our perception of the film's third act.

  While in Paris an academic meets a woman who may be involved in a series of mysterious murders.
• 
  Midnight In Paris (2011)

  Review preview for Midnight In Paris

  Effortlessly entertaining, infinitely likeable and surprisingly warm.

  A struggling writer visiting Paris with his fiancee explores the city's illustrious past in order to find his real passions.
• 
  Hamlet (1996)

  Review preview for Hamlet

  By this point in his career, Ken Branagh had found his voice and a set of skills to match his confidence.

  Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his father murdered and his mother remarrying the murderer, his uncle. Meanwhile, war is brewing.
• 
  Blackmail Boys (2010)

  Review preview for Blackmail Boys

  Haziness and lack of bite and depth eventually lead to the film's downfall.

  Two lovers in a long-distance relationship turn to extortion to fund their wedding.
• 
  Everything Must Go (2010)

  Review preview for Everything Must Go

  There's something increasingly bland and uninvolving about this Will Ferrell vehicle which, like him or loathe him, you've got to admit is a kind of achievement.

  Tale of a middle-aged suburbanite whose life is crumbling.
• 
  One From The Heart (1981)

  Review preview for One From The Heart

  The performances are generally solid, the soundtrack and visuals wonderful and the ambition is vaulting, but it is ultimately a failed experiment.

  After a couple split up on their anniversary they find the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.
• 
  Flypaper (2011)

  Review preview for Flypaper

  It's not quite as slick or sexy as the Ocean's movies, but it is steeped in personality.

  A man gets embroiled in two simultaneous attempted bank heists.
• 
  A Marine Story (2010)

  Review preview for A Marine Story

  Weber's performance is the glue that binds this movie together.

  A highly capable soldier who is quietly dismissed after it's discovered she's a lesbian takes on the training of a troubled local teenager who wants to join up.
• 
  Risen (2010)

  Review preview for Risen

  With its lack of character insight and misdirected lack of focus, Risen is never going to be the knock out its central character once was.

  Biopic of featherweight boxing world champion Howard Winstone.
• 
  Skin (2008)

  Review preview for Skin

  The film's power is found in its shades of grey and its tight focus.

  A youngster falls in with a neo-Nazi crowd.
• 
  From Beginning To End (2009)

  Review preview for From Beginning To End

  Somewhere between the slightly dull first 40 minutes, and the head-smackingly stupid final reel, it's briefly a heady, sensual and amoral guilty pleasure.

  Two half-brothers form an unusual bond.
• 
  Rabbit Hole (2010)

  Review preview for Rabbit Hole

  The biggest problem is the cold distance from subject matter; the capturing of grief's dislocation and shock is as frightening as it should be, but it's never underpinned with enough psychological insight or clarity to convince completely.

  Eight months after the death of their son, a couple are still trying to cope with grief.
• 
  The Snowman (2009)

  Review preview for The Snowman

  What impresses most is Lamont's intelligent and absorbing approach to her material.

  A daughter's journey to try to find out what triggered her father's mental illness.
• 
  Surviving Georgia (2011)

  Review preview for Surviving Georgia

  When the film's romantic and more cathartic strands start to emerge half way through, it nestles into the perfect smug of the sentimental and jagged edges the film previously creates for itself.

  The arrival of matching letters from their estranged mother Georgia turns the worlds of sisters Heidi and Rose upside down.
• 
  KickOff (2010)

  Review preview for KickOff

  A screaming mess of a movie that is just a few performances away from a waste of time.

  A gay five-a-side team take on a team from an inner city.
• 
  Children Of God (2010)

  Review preview for Children Of God

  There are too many ideas here for a film with such sketchy, one-dimensional characters.

  Two men form a relationship against the background of an anti-gay rally in the Bahamas.
• 
  Arrivederci Millwall (1990)

  Review preview for Arrivederci Millwall

  A provocative, well-acted piece.

  A group of hooligans get ready to go to the 1982 world cup.
• 
  Man Of Aran (1934)

  Review preview for Man Of Aran

  The black and white photography is rich and full of texture.

  Restored documentary about the people of Aran. On limited re-release.
• 
  Confessions (2010)

  Review preview for Confessions

  So while a difficult, challenging experience - both emotionally and cerebrally - this is a masterful, endlessly intriguing piece.

  A teacher who thinks two of her pupils are responsible for the death of her daughter takes revenge.
• 
  Small Time (1996)

  Review preview for Small Time

  We never feel the director dislikes or looks down on his characters; even at these people's most asinine or unpleasant moments, they're graced with light and shade, horror and warmth.

  A gang of small town criminals engage in petty crime.
• 
  The Circus (1928)

  Review preview for The Circus

  It'll make you fall in love with Chaplin, and with cinema, all over again.

  The Little Tramp takes a job as a clown and falls for the ringmaster's daughter.
• 
  The Chaplin Revue (2010)

  Review preview for The Chaplin Revue

  It's definitely a fit of nostalgia for better days, at least artistically, and it's still a joy to see these shorts put into a form which is more accessible for latter day audiences.

  Three short, silent Charlie Chaplin comedies - A Dog's Life, Shoulder Arms and The Pilgrim - in a restored edition with new music.
• 
  The Misfits (1961)

  Review preview for The Misfits

  Monroe inhabits the role, becomes the role – and with everything we now know about Monroe's final years, it becomes uncomfortably hard to say where the boundaries of fact and fiction lie.

  An unhappy woman takes a road trip with two strangers, looking to round up wild horses.
• 
  The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)

  Review preview for The Lavender Hill Mob

  The writing itself is heavily structured – after 20 minutes in, it's set piece after set piece. Yet the events never feels episodic or predictable.

  A scheme to embezzle gold bullion goes awry in this classic black comedy.
• 
  Another Woman (1988)

  Review preview for Another Woman

  This is a film which is both thoughtful and surprising.

  A writer re-evaluates her life after overhearing conversations in the psychiatrist's consulting room next door.
• 
  Dream Home (2010)

  Review preview for Dream Home

  It's pretty torturous stuff.

  Trying to get your ideal home can be murder.
• 
  Abel (2010)

  Review preview for Abel

  There's some late in the day pathos which does pull at the heart strings, but the film falls flat once more with a half-baked open ended conclusion.

  A peculiar young boy, blurring reality and fantasy, assumes the responsibilities of a family man in his father's absence.
• 
  Surviving Life (2010)

  Review preview for Surviving Life

  The gradual slip into tragedy in the film's last few reels offer up a reeling pathos rare in a Svankmajer picture.

  Eugene prefers a life of dreams to everyday reality in surrealist animator Jan Švankmajer's extension of one of his own dreams.
• 
  The Pipe (2010)

  Review preview for The Pipe

  In between helicopter shots of the glorious landscape and the slightly irritating finger-wagging, there's a good story here with a sprinkling of jaw-dropping moments.

  A documentary about a County Mayo campaign against the laying of a new Shell oil pipeline.
• 
  The King's Speech (2010)

  Review preview for The King's Speech

  Although there is a lot of humour, crowd-pleasing fun and some award-worthy performances, there seems to be a lack of edge and darkness here.

  The relationship between King George VI and an unconventional Australian speech therapist.
• 
  Black Swan (2010)

  Review preview for Black Swan

  As elegant and overblown as ballet itself.

  A psychological thriller set in the world of the New York City ballet.
• 
  Let Him Have It (1991)

  Review preview for Let Him Have It

  Christopher Ecclestone has rarely been better .

  True story of Derek Bentley, sentenced to death for a bungled robbery.
• 
  Dennis Potter's Cold Lazarus And Karaoke (1995)

  Review preview for Dennis Potter's Cold Lazarus And Karaoke

  A mixture of elegy and sharp observation.

  The acclaimed TV dramatist's final work.
• 
  Cold Lazarus (1996)

  Review preview for Cold Lazarus

  Cold Lazarus ends writer Dennis Potter's career on an elegiac note. But, as ever for Potter, this elegy is played out in bitter minor chords.

  In 2368, scientists tap into the memory of a man who died in the 1990s.
• 
  Karaoke (1996)

  Review preview for Karaoke

  Underlying everything is a sense of nihilism and borderline amorality in the face of destruction.

  A playwright is struck by cancer while working on the post-production of a TV drama.
• 
  Afterwards (2008)

  Review preview for Afterwards

  As technically accomplished as it might be, this is a ponderous and interminable experience.

  An attorney is haunted by his past.
• 
  The Astronomer's Sun (2010)

  Review preview for The Astronomer's Sun

  Some of the CGI was obviously done on a limited budget. But it doesn't matter, as it's totally captivating.

  A man and a mechanical bear head to an observatory to confront his past.
• 
  Secret Santa (2010)

  Review preview for Secret Santa

  Not even the quality of the animation or the music is up to much in this throwaway affair.

  Short of cash, Santa decides to become a stripper.
• 
  Hard Hat (2010)

  Review preview for Hard Hat

  In its own low-key, unassuming way, it's pretty powerful.

  A melancholy comedy about recent immigrants trying to adjust to life in Britain.
• 
  Nolan's Cheddar (2010)

  Review preview for Nolan's Cheddar

  With a central character as cute as this one, you could forgive it anything.

  Mouse meets cheese, but life is never that simple.
• 
  Junk Food (2010)

  Review preview for Junk Food

  A neat idea and fairly well executed.

  A man has an uncanny encounter with a sofa.
• 
  Ashenden (2010)

  Review preview for Ashenden

  Manages to create and sustain tension out of very little material.

  A man is intrigued when he sees his doppelgänger passing by his flat.