the wrecking crew

The Wrecking Crew

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Dean Martin close-up

1968’s The Wrecking Crew was the last of the Matt Helm movies. A series of chintzy James Bond knock-offs – Faux Faux Seven? Junk Bond? – starring Dean Martin as a spy laidback to the point of requiring resuscitation, it had pretty much exhausted the seam by this fourth outing. Box office wasn’t great either so when Martin’s co-star, Sharon Tate, got murdered it made for a handy smokescreen. In public utterances Martin said that her death had taken the fun out of the films and that’s why he was giving up. In reality… who really knows? As for plot: a bullion heist so huge that it needs to be kept quiet otherwise … Read more

The Wrecking Crew

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Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista head to head

My first movie from 2026. And because it was released in January, I’m not expecting much of The Wrecking Crew. The prestige movies come at the back end of the year, so as to be fresh in the minds of voters when awards season gets underway (roughly, November to February/March). Not that The Wrecking Crew is the sort of film that is ever lined up for anything at all, except the appreciation of fans of movies like this. It’s Jason Momoa and Dave Baustista, before we go any further, playing a pair of estranged, muscley Hawaiian brothers thrown back together when their dad dies unexpectedly. It turns out that Dad possessed something the … Read more

13 July 2015-07-13

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Ryan Reynolds and Gemma Arterton in The Voices

Out This Week The Voices (Arrow, cert 15) Marjane Satrapi has made a good film about a man with appalling schizophrenia. That she’s chosen to make it into a comedy, and has cast Ryan Reynolds as the disturbed guy who believes his pet cat and dog are talking to him shows she doesn’t lack for ambition. I suspect a lot of people won’t like The Voices at all, because a comedy about a man who likes to dismember people, and who is shown sawing them up and packing them neatly into many stacked Tupperware boxes like so many packed lunches, is, let’s face it, a bit gruesome. And he’s the “hero”. But Reynolds is excellent … Read more