Jamie Dornan

A Haunting in Venice

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Poirot in the dark with a crucifix in the background

A change of gear for Kenneth Branaghā€™s third Agatha Christie adaptation. A Haunting in Venice isnā€™t as starry as Murder on the Orient Express or Death on the Nile, doesnā€™t start out with a captive roster of possible murderers and murderees and, to an extent, abandons the strict rationality of previous Hercule Poirot adventures for something a bit more supernatural. All three turn out to be changes for the better. This is probably the best of the bunch so far, though, full disclosure, Iā€™m not really a fan of these things. Whether itā€™s Peter Ustinov, John Malkovich, Albert Finney, Ian Holm, David Suchet, Tony Randall, Alfred Molina or even Austin Trevor (first of … Read more

Synchronic

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Paramedics Mackie and Dornan

Synchronic is Christopher Nolan knock-off fronted by a pair of decent actors ā€“ Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan ā€“ and directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who gave us the intelligent indie psycho-thriller The Endless. Mackie and Dornan play a pair of paramedics who start noticing that weird cases are coming their way. One badly injured man appears to be suffering from a drug overdose but also has a massive sword wound from front to back through his chest. The sword appears to be the sort of thing a conquistador might carry. Another man is lying at the bottom of a lift shaft, dismembered but with a big smile on his face. … Read more

Wild Mountain Thyme

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Anthony and Rosemary at the gate

From the very first shot of Wild Mountain Thyme I was thinking ā€œGood god, surely people arenā€™t still making films like this!ā€ The opening shot being an overhead of the lush slopes of rural Ireland while the soundtrack twiddled away in madly shamrocky fashion. It got worse. A beejaysus-Irish voiceover announces ā€œIā€™m deadā€, by way of an introduction. The whimsy-ometer starts climbing into the red zone. And then I realised itā€™s Christopher Walken doing the bad Irish accent. The letters W, T and F start to appear in the air. What the actual, it actually gets even worse, as weā€™re introduced to one Oirish character after another. Enter Walken as old farmer Tony … Read more