Dorothy Patrick

Follow Me Quietly

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Ann and Harry with a blank-faced mystery killer

Follow Me Quietly is only one hour long and so desperate to use its time well that it’s already running its first scene beneath the opening credits – a woman walking to and fro in the rain. From the way she’s pacing, and shielding the glowing end of a cigarette like a soldier in a trench, we can tell she’s a femme fatale. Inside the next five minutes all the other key characters have been introduced in a similarly concise way, by which point we know this is a thriller about a serial killer called the Judge, and that this is a story about driven characters – the killer, the cop on his … Read more

High Wall

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Steven Kenet and Dr Lorison in the asylum

One for lovers of noirish movies with twisty plots, High Wall doesn’t in the end quite add up emotionally, but its serpentine bends make it an enjoyable crime thriller asking us to reconsider an open-and-shut case once any number of impediments have been thrown in the way. The opening scene – a man is driving his car with his wife in the passenger seat. She’s dead, it seems, and in a few seconds he’ll be dead too, if his plan to crash his car off a bridge succeeds. That seems to be the story anyway. His plan doesn’t quite succeed. He survives the crash and has soon been arrested. He admits to killing … Read more