Category Archives: Thriller

Fair Play review — A bloody portrait of power, ego and sex

October 10, 2023 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Chloe Domont | 113 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Netflix Fair Play is an adrenalized New York picture the likes of which we haven't seen in awhile. It's got the bones of something like Margin Call, set in that world, but it's entirely its own beast — making its own inquiries and…Read More

Sanctuary review — A bonded pair

September 1, 2023 flawintheiris

Directed by Zachary Wigon | Written by Micah Bloomberg | 96 min |▲▲▲▲△ | Amazon Prime When Rebecca (Margaret Qualley) walks into a hotel room where Hal (Christopher Abbott) is staying, she's wearing a blonde wig so patently awful right away you'll wonder about her bona fides. Apparently she's there to interview him about insurance…Read More

The Lesson review — A delightfully trashy, twisted tale

August 26, 2023 flawintheiris

Directed by Alice Troughton | Written by Alex MacKeith | 103 min | ▲▲▲△△ | VOD and Digital Here's a tasty little movie recommended for the keen Richard E Grant fan out there. The Lesson is an outrageous melodrama turned thriller that trades in a whole lot of long, lingering looks between the players and…Read More

Tara Thorne’s Compulsus screens in Halifax

July 27, 2023 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Tara Thorne | 80 min | Screening at Carbon Arc Cinema A version of this post first appeared on the blog in September 2022 during coverage of the Atlantic International Film Festival — this week the fest having shrugged off that awkward, unloved tag, FIN. So, this isn't a proper review…Read More

Subtraction review — The double lives of Farzaneh and Jalal

July 6, 2023 flawintheiris

Directed by Mani Haghighi | Written by Haghighi and Amir Reza Koohestani | 107 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Carbon Arc Cinema My positive experiences of Iranian cinema are largely rooted in Asghar Farhadi and Jafar Panahi. Their stories of social realism reflect the challenges of people living in a regime of arcane laws and religious…Read More

Reality review — Verbatim leaker thriller has the goods

June 19, 2023 flawintheiris

Directed by Tina Satter | Written by Satter and James Paul Dallas, based on the play Is This A Room by Satter | 83 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Crave In June 2017, the Georgia suburban home of an American former US Air Force member and NSA translator named, believe it or not, Reality Winner (Sydney…Read More

The Wrath Of Becky review — Gory and goofy, both

June 9, 2023 flawintheiris

Directed by Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote | Written by Angel, Coote, and Nick Morris | 84 min | ▲▲▲△△ Back in 2020 a low-budget, high-gore thriller called Becky came out. It starred Lulu Wlison as the titular Becky, a 13-year-old girl who gets revenge on the Neo-Nazis (led by Kevin James!) who've invaded her…Read More

Mission Kandahar review — Gerard Butler gets stuck in the sand

May 25, 2023 flawintheiris

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh | Written by Mitchell LaFortune | 120 min | ▲▲△△△ The second Gerard Butler actioner this year — I confess I missed the earlier one, the surprisingly well-reviewed Plane — but this one reteams the Scottish star with his Greenland helmer, Waugh. That's a promising start. Also, the script is…Read More

Master Gardener review — Thriller gets lost in the weeds

May 18, 2023 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Paul Schrader | 111 min | ▲▲▲△△ | Netflix I often think about casting, and how a project can sink or swim depending on who gets put in the key roles. Sometimes if it's a poor fit it isn't really about the skill or charisma of the actor, sometimes it's…Read More

How To Blow Up A Pipeline review — Explosive political thriller leaves more questions than answers

April 17, 2023 flawintheiris

Directed by Daniel Goldhaber | Written by Goldhaber, Ariela Barer, and Jordan Sjol, based on the book by Andreas Malm | 103 min | ▲▲▲△△ A group of young and notably diverse environmental activists — who some would call terrorists — gather together in the Texas desert with enough explosives to disable key energy infrastructure.…Read More