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Crime 101

Director – Bart Layton – 2025 – US, UK – Cert. 15 – 140m

*****

high class lone operator thief and the rigorously analytical cop on his trail cross paths with a disillusioned insurance saleswoman to the wealthy – out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 13th

As coloured dots come into focus, they are revealed to be the lights of a Los Angeles freeway upside down, an image which bookends the movie. Davis (Chris Hemsworth) exercise in his sparse apartment before donning a suit. Detective “Lou” Lubesnik (Mark Ruffalo) shaves in his small, untidy bathroom. Sharon Coombs (Halle Berry), in her bathroom, goes through the laborious task of applying make-up.

This is essentially a four-hander – more of the fourth character later on.

Davis is a lone operator who thinks through his proposed robberies beforehand in such a way as to ensure that no-one gets hurt. LAPD investigator Lubesnik has become obsessed with a string of robberies he believes committed by the same person, to the detriment, as his colleagues and superiors see it, of his regular police work. Sharon works for a high end insurance company who have been stringing her along for years with hollow promises of board membership to use her now fading good looks to close sales to wealthy clients.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Strongroom

Director – Vernon Sewell – 2025 – UK – Cert. 12a – 80m

*****

Three men have planned the perfect bank robbery… but then, everything goes wrong – out in UK cinemas on Friday, January 30th, BFI Blu-ray Monday, February 23rd, and BFI Player Monday, March 23rd

Strongroom doesn’t hang around. It opens with a strongroom door which must be locked at close of business by two separate keys, one looked after by the bank manager Mr. Spencer (Colin Gordon from Oh Brother!, TV series, 1968; The Pink Panther, Blake Edwards, 1963; Heavens Above!, The Boulting Brothers, 1963; The Man in the White Suit, Alexander Mackendrick, 1951) and the other by his secretary Miss Taylor (Ann Lynn from Just Good Friends, TV series, 1984-86; A Shot in the Dark, Blake Edwards, 1964). This Saturday, she’s agreed to work late as no-one will be in until the Tuesday after Easter.

What neither of them know is that sitting outside the bank in their small van, waiting for the bank employees to leave as per their usual schedule, is a gang of three criminals Griff (Derren Nesbitt from Tucked, Jamie Patterson, 2018; Where Eagles Dare, Brian G.… Read the rest