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Wasteman

Director – Cal McMau – 2025 – UK – Cert. 18 – 90m

*****

A prisoner’s chances of achieving parole are threatened by the arrival of a ruthless and manipulative new cellmate – out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 20th

Taylor (David Jonsson from The Long Walk, Francis Lawrence , 2025; Alien: Romulus, Fede Alvarez, 2024; Rye Lane, Raine Allen-Miller, 2023), a young inmate in prison, is due for parole provided he behaves as required. However, his new cellmate Dee (Tom Blyth from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Francis Lawrence, 2023; Benediction, Terence Davies, 2021; Robin Hood, Ridley Scott, 2010) has other ideas, including making money by dealing all manner of illicit goods from the outside.

This opens with a row between inmates, one of whom is determined to mete out punishment to whoever it was took his mobile phone. Very quickly, the situation descends into his suspected thief being assaulted with a television set that happens to be nearby. As another prisoner says to the one who carries out the assault, part in awe, part in jest, and part in newly-found respect, “Fucking TV, mate.”

Welcome to the world of Wasteman, the term used to designate central character Taylor who has been written off by British society.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Hard Target

Director – John Woo – 1993 – US – Cert. 18 – 100m (UK version), 86m (US version)

****

John Woo’s US debut is a New Orleans remake of The Most Dangerous Game with action star Jean-Claude Van Damme – part of Art of Action, a major UK-wide season celebrating the artistry of real action choreography at cinemas across the UK October-November 2024

Essentially the first of two remakes of The Most Dangerous Game / The Hounds Of Zaroff (Ernest B. Schoedsack, Irving Pichel, 1932, shot using the same cast, crew and jungle sets as King Kong, (Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933) – the second being Surviving The Game (Ernest R. Dickinson, 1994) – this updates the original’s remote island to the urban jungle of and countryside surrounding New Orleans, making its mad game hunter (Lance Henriksen taking on the role originally played by Leslie Banks) prey not on lost seafarers but unemployed down and outs on dry land.

In true New Right nineties spirit, the hunter of humans has now graduated from being merely a gratifying personal sport for deranged psychopaths to a lucrative business attracting high rolling, thrill-seeking clients who get to pull the trigger themselves.… Read the rest