The Highwaymen; The Red Violin; The Report; The Favourite

Four films to be reviewed. So far as I can recall I have never considered Bonnie and Clyde on these pages but it is a film I have seen several times. Estimable judges (Roger Ebert included) place that film in the pantheon of greats. I am wary of disagreeing with as great an opinion as Ebert's but I will reluctantly beg to differ. The film is undoubtedly enthrallling and uber-stylish and maybe it's me being prissy but does it not give the two eponymous murderers too easy a ride? No? Oh well it must be me. Anyway we now have a lesser film (though a good one) The Highwaymen which serves an antidote to Arhur Penn's film. Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson are reliably excellent as the two superannuated Texas Rangers who tracked down the Barrow Gang and administered their brutal execution. An aggregate of thirty-five thousand people attended the gangsters' funerals. I think all The Highwaymen is saying is, 'Go figure'. And as messages go that's a pretty good one. 7/10.

The Red Violin is a rather different kettle of fish. An ensemble piece it artfullly traces the history of a fabled and perfect musical instrument. We watched it on a Sunday afternoon and that feels like the right time to watch it. All sorts of stars flit across the screen - Greta Scacchi utterly predictably takes her clothes off, not that this is a demerit, merely old hat. In the end (and this I'm sure was the intention) it is the cultural artefact, the violin itself, that becomes the star of the piece. 7/10.

It was watching The Candidate with Dad the best part of fifty years ago that elicited from him the observation that America is at its best when washing its dirty laundry in public. This would become an even more salient analysis in the context of Watergate, the journalistic uncovering of which fuelled my desire to be a writer - oh well you can't win them all - for a writer I made a passably good lawyer. All of which brings me round slowly to The Report - a liberal telling of the shaming tale of American use of torture post 9/11 and the political conspiracy to cover it up. On the face of it this is not a cinematic story - we are subjected to some portrayals of the acts of political violence but most of the picture is about the process of investigation of those acts. Stick with it though, it's important. 7.5/10.

The Favourite worried me a little. At first I thought it was going to be a sort of souped-up version of The Draughtsman's Contract but after an initial infatuation with stylistic weirdness it picks up. However the ecstatic critical reaction to this film seems to me to have been all about the discovery by America that Olivia Colman is a superb actress. We have known this for years and this is not even her best work. A perfectly fine film but not deserving of all the ballyhoo. 7/10.