THE INVITE : Tuesday 14th July 2026.

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'THE INVITE' at my local independant Odeon this week, and this American comedy film is Directed by Olivia Wilde in her third feature film Directorial outing following 'Booksmart' in 2019 and 'Don't Worry Darling' in 2022. In addition, she has many acting roles in the likes of 'The Girl Next Door' in 2004, 'Alpha Dog' in 2006, 'Cowboys & Aliens' in 2011, 'People Like Us' in 2012, 'Deadfall' also in 2012, 'Rush' in 2013, 'Her' in 2013, 'The Lazarus Effect' in 2015, 'Love the Coopers' in 2015, 'Life Itself' in 2019 and 'Richard Jewell' in 2019, and due for release at the end of this month 'I Want Your Sex'. This film is an English language remake of the Spanish film 'The People Upstairs' Directed by Cesc Gay. The film had its Premiere showcasing at this years Sundance Film Festival in late January, saw its wide release Stateside, the UK and here in Australia last week, has so far grossed US$15M and has garnered universal critical acclaim.

Failed musician Joe (Seth Rogen) arrives home from work having ridden his fold-up bicycle all the way across town only to collapse on the floor the moment he walks in the door, suffering from an aching back. He soon learns that his stay-at-home wife Angela (Olivia Wilde) has invited their upstairs neighbours, divorcee Pina (Penelope Cruz) and widower Hawk (Edward Norton), over for dinner at their apartment, and they are due to arrive in about fifteen minutes. Angela has laid on a lavish spread of cut deli meats and cheeses, and has prepared a souffle which she places in the oven to bake off. Joe and Angela's marriage is on thin ice and they bicker and argue constantly, most recently over the loud sex noises they hear from upstairs every night. Joe plans to confront the couple, but Angela, who is desperate to make friends with their neighbours, demands he keep calm and does not broach the subject.. 

Pina and Hawk arrive at the apartment as Joe and Angela are in mid-argument. Unprepared to host a dinner party, Angela makes several awkward mistakes, such as not having any wine, not checking Pina's dietary restrictions for she doesn't eat meat, cheese or gluten products, and she also burns the souffle which goes straight in the bin. Meanwhile, Joe openly aggravates the couple, but is surprised to see they are impressed by his brutally honest nature. 

The group eventually warm to one another, over a bottle of vintage French red wine gifted to them as a wedding present which they were hoping to save for a special occasion. Joe however, still resents his neighbours for their noise and is deeply troubled when he learns Hawk has seen Angela naked through a window that looks down from their apartment into theirs.

As the evening progresses Pina and Hawk apologise for the noise they make during sex and reveal to Joe and Angela that they participate in regular group sex sessions which is the reason for the noise. Joe and Angela are titillated by this revelation. Pina admits that she and Hawk came to the dinner party hoping to invite Joe and Angela to have group sex with them. Joe and Angela are eager, but Pina, who is a psychoanalyst and sexologist, is unsure after seeing the couple constantly at each others throats throughout the evening. Instead, they decide to swap partners. However, Angela is too nervous to initiate sex with the former fire fighter Hawk, and Joe falls backwards into a bookshelf in his study while dancing with Pina and puts his back out.

Another argument breaks out between Joe and Angela, and he rebukes their neighbours. Pina gets the couple to talk about their relationship, and learns of the resentment they have to each other and the fact they have not had sex in a year. Pina suggests the couple should separate instead of sticking together for the sake of their twelve year old daughter, Maggie, who is away for the night, or find a way to reframe their relationship, as the current status appears to have run its course. Angela and Joe seemingly agree to separate, and discuss their next moves, but upon returning from the kitchen, discover Pina and Hawk have left. Joe returns to his office and plays his piano for the first time in years, with Angela retreating to Maggie's bedroom, but eventually she joins him at the keys. When they have finished playing their musical piece, Angela rests her head on Joe's shoulder.

Here Actress and Director Olivia Wilde has crafted a mature aged comedy that is a throw back to the adult sex comedies of the late '70's and '80's while updating the story with all the emotional heft, laugh out loud moments of razor sharp humour, and modern day sensibilities that make for an engaging time at the movies. The four Actors here all share the screen in equal measure, all have their own pitch perfect lines of dialogue, and all have their moment to shine individually and collectively. This is a film that almost any married couple will be able to relate to at some level, as it is thought provoking in its study of human relationships, the fragility of such and the prospect of second chances. If observing two couples experience the most tense, uncomfortable and stressful supposed dinner party of their middle-aged lives is for you, then you won't be disappointed in this cringe-worthy yet thoroughly engaging film. 

'The Invite' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE BRIDE ! : Tuesday 10th March 2026

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'THE BRIDE!' at my local independent movie theatre earlier this week, and this American Gothic romance film is Written for the screen, Co-Produced and Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal in only her second Directorial outing following 2021's 'The Lost Daughter', although she has acted in numerous film, television and theatre roles over the years, and has been recognised in many award wins and nominations too. The film draws inspiration from the 1935 film 'Bride of Frankenstein', which was based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel 'Frankenstein'. The film had its World Premiere in London on 26th February and was released Stateside and here in Australia last week, having so far grossed US$15M at the Box Office from an US$85M production budget, and generating mixed or average critical reviews. 

The film opens with a black & white close-up of Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley) speaking from the hereafter, saying she has a story she wanted to tell after publishing her book Frankenstein in 1818, but could not due to her death in 1851. To tell it, she possesses Ida (Jessie Buckley), a woman living in 1936 Chicago, who we are first introduced to in a very busy bar and restaurant, and who in her possessed state proceeds to shout out across the room to all the stunned diners the criminal activities of crime boss Lupino (Zlatko Buric) who is sat at the bar observing her closely. Lupino's henchmen Clyde (John Magaro) and James (Matthew Maher) discreetly kill her afterward, by pushing her down a flight of steps where she tumbles end over end breaking her neck and a leg in the process, and falling in a crumpled heap at the bottom. 

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Chicago, Frankenstein's monster, aka 'Frank' (Christian Bale), arrives at the house of scientist Dr. Cornelia Euphronius (Annette Bening). Having read about Euphronius' work on reanimation, he persuades her to create a companion for him after a century of abject loneliness. Euphronius and Frank dig up Ida's recently buried corpse from an unmarked cemetery grave, and successfully revive her, but she loses her memory in the process. Frank takes advantage of this and states that she is his Bride and lost her memory in an accident, which she accepts. She then coughs up an inky black substance that was part of the formula to reanimate her, which in turn permanently dyes her tongue, her cheek, her fingers and leaves long trail marks running down her arm and her breast.

Euphronius demands that the pair remain within the confines of her house, but Frank and the Bride have different plans. They go to the cinema to see a movie featuring Frank's favourite Actor Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal) and then go dance in a club. The Bride dances provocatively with other clubbers while Frank sits at the bar and watches on. As they leave, two men harass the Bride and Frank. Frank attempts to diffuse the situation by ignoring their actions, but it all becomes too much for him to bear and he retaliates by repeatedly smashing ones head against a wall, and then stomping on the others head on the gutter, until his head is mush. He tells the Bride to leave him, but she says that she has no where to go and decides to live life as a runaway with him. 

They stow away in a train headed to New York City, killing a security officer who finds them as the train passes through Indiana. Meanwhile, Detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his assistant Myrna Malloy (Penelope Cruz) investigate the murders and eventually follow them to New York.

Frank and the Bride cause chaos at a screening of 'Revolt of the Zombies' and then seek refuge from the Police and an angry mob giving chase to the fleeing pair, at a high-class party. Frank notices Ronnie Reed as one of the guests and interrupts his conversation by expressing his adoration for the Actor, and his gratitude for giving him some modicum of purpose in his life, but is alas dismissed by Reed. Detective Wiles and the Police arrive at the party, but fall back when the Bride briefly holds Reed at gunpoint. Wiles recognises her real identity as Ida. The Bride shoots dead an advancing Police officer wielding a gun. The pair then hot-wire a car, and manage to flee the city.

The Bride and Frank's crime exploits generate much publicity, and Lupino recognises her in a newspaper article. While sat in a restaurant chomping down on freshly cooked lobster Lupino shoots James at point blank range in the head for failing to silence her, and sends of Clyde to kill her again, swearing vengeance on his family if he fails to do so. Meanwhile, Malloy makes a connection between reports of murders and sightings of the pair in cities where Reed's films were set. This prompts Malloy and Wiles to travel to Niagara Falls where they locate the pair just as Frank asks the Bride to marry him. Wiles confronts the Bride and tells her of her true identity as Ida. She shoots him in the lower leg in response. As Frank and the Bride flee, Frank admits that he wasn't entirely honest with her in the beginning and conveys that he actually did not know who she was before she died. She forgives him.

Wiles explains to Malloy that he and Ida were planning to take down Lupino and expresses guilt that his inaction led to her death. He decides to retire and promotes Malloy as his replacement. Malloy tracks Frank and the Bride to a drive-in cinema in Illinois. At the same time, Clyde arrives and fatally shoots Frank in the head. The Bride escapes with Frank's body and returns to Euphronius' laboratory, unaware that Malloy is following her. Euphronius declares that she is incapable of reviving Frank. Clyde breaks into the laboratory and shoots the Bride before leaving. The Police arrive en masse and all begin shooting at the Bride in a relentless hail of bullets. Malloy screams for them to stop, as the Bride's lifeless body slumps on top of Frank. She then orders them to search for Clyde seen exiting the building via the fire escape, leaving Euphronius with the Bride and Frank's corpses, saying 'take as long as you need'! Seemingly possessed by Shelley's spirit, Euphronius decides to revive the couple. Outside, the Police arrest Clyde who they have pinned to the ground, for killing the Bride and Frank. Malloy looks up at the building's upper most floor to see flashes of bright lights shine momentarily from the laboratory. Inside, the revived corpses hands are seen to be moving searching for each other, until they clasp together. 

During an end credits sequence, Lupino is seen to be apprehended by Wiles and the female rioters who were inspired by the Bride's rants, threatening to cut out his tongue, just as Lupino had done to all of his previous victims, and stored them in pickling jars on a shelf in his restaurant for all the world to see.

It's easy to see why 'The Bride' has polarised audiences and critics. On the one hand its good to see Maggie Gyllenhaal trying her hand at an age old story and giving it a bold new revisionist refresh that looks stylish, has high production values, is creative in its execution, has manic energy aplenty and is bolstered by exemplary performances from its two lead players in Buckley and Bale. Buckley's role here is about as far removed from that of Agnes Shakespeare in 'Hamnet' (reviewed last week) as you can get, but she steals the show here once again and proves her versatility and range as one of the most diverse Actors working today. But, on the other hand the screenplay is disjointed, with at times clunky dialogue, unfulfilled character arcs, and too many unrealised sub-plots, that ultimately all add up to a film that displays plenty of style, and less of substance. That said, if you're in the mood for a riff on 'Bonnie and Clyde', female empowerment, the feminist movement, and a reinvigorated look at a horror classic with a modern twist, then you could do worse.

'The Bride' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

FERRARI : Tuesday 9th January 2024.

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'FERRARI' earlier this week, and this American biographical sports drama film is Directed by Michael Mann and is based on the 1991 biography 'Enzo Ferrari: The Man, the Cars, the Races, the Machine' by motorsport journalist Brock Yates. Michael Mann's prior feature film making credits take in his Directorial debut in 1981 with 'Thief' which he would follow up with the likes of 'Manhunter' in 1986, 'The Last of the Mohicans' in 1992, 'Heat' in 1995, 'The Insider' in 1999, 'Ali' in 2001, 'Collateral' in 2004, 'Miami Vice' in 2006 and 'Public Enemies' in 2009. 'Ferrari' has been a passion project of Mann's since 2000 when he first began exploring making the film. Since then Christian Bale and then Hugh Jackman were attached to star as Enzo Ferrari, with Adam Driver eventually scoring the gig. 'Ferrari' was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival, where it Premiered at the end of August last year, before its wide cinema release in the US on 25th December, having so far grossed US$28M from a production budget of US$95M and garnering generally favourable reviews. 

The film opens up with pre-WWII black and white footage of cars racing around a dusty track with a young Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) crossing the finish line to take first place. We then fast forward to 1957 and now the owner of the Ferrari motor racing company and sports car manufacturer Enzo is seen waking up in bed one bright sunny morning next to his mistress Lina Lardi (Shailene Woodley). He sneaks out of bed, gets dressed and stealthily leaves the house bump starting his car down the drive so as not to wake Lina and their young son Piero (Giuseppe Festinese). 

He arrives home to Modena early in the morning where his wife Laura Ferrari (Penelope Cruz) is waiting for him, with a loaded pistol. After a heated exchange of words she shoots at him deliberately missing but putting a bullet hole in the wall at head height. Enzo then visits the family mausoleum to pay his respects to his son with Laura, Alfredo 'Dino' Ferrari, who died just one year previously in 1956 at the age of 24 from muscular dystrophy. Lina in the meantime is putting pressure on Enzo to grant their illegitimate son, the Ferrari name as his confirmation approaches.

Meanwhile, Ferrari’s manufacturing company is suffering from severe financial haemorrhaging. His accountant tells him that last year the company sold just 98 sports cars and to survive they need to sell four hundred in order to underpin Enzo's racing ambitions. Faced with no other choice, Ferrari must merge with a sister company in order to keep his business afloat. However, Laura owns half of Ferrari's shares, and ever since the company was founded in 1947 the pair have done everything on an even 50/50 basis. In order to move forward on deals, Enzo must convince Laura to sign the entirety of the company over to him. A resentful Laura demands a bank cheque for US$500K, which will bankrupt the company if she cashes it. The accountant also suggests that Ferrari should enter his racing team to the 1957 Mille Miglia - the 24th edition of the auto race held on a course totalling 992.332 miles (1,597.004 km), made up entirely of public roads around Italy, mostly on the outer parts of the country on 11th and 12th May 1957. The route was based on a round trip between Brescia and Rome, with start/finish in Brescia.

Meanwhile, during a private Ferrari test session at the Modena Autodrome, Eugenio Castellotti (Marino Franchitti) was testing a new Ferrari Grand Prix car for the 1957 season. He had been told by Enzo in person to test there and set a fast time, in order to beat an unofficial lap record that had just been set by Maserati. Castelotti hit a high kerb at a chicane and was thrown out of the car - his body was hurled 100 yards with the car repeatedly overturning before coming to rest in the members' stand. Castelotti was killed instantly. Enzo orders Laura to withdraw US$25K from the business account to give to Castelotti's widow. 

At the bank sitting with a clerk to withdraw the funds, the clerk makes the mistake of naming the villa where Lina lives. Laura confirms her suspicions by having her driver take them to the address located in the countryside outside Modena, where she confirms that Enzo has been having an affair, and has secretly been using company funds to maintain the villa. Laura confronts Enzo with the fact that she knows the truth. Enzo agrees to write the cheque and trusts her to wait until such time as a business partnership is forged. 

As the Mille Miglia commences in Brescia, Enzo encourages his drivers to remain ahead of the competition. During a pit-stop in Rome, Enzo’s newest addition to the team, Alfonso de Portago, (Gabriel Leone) refuses to change his tyres to stay in the lead. 

Later, while driving at top speed down a very long stretch of country road passing through the village of Guidizzolo he suffers a tyre blowout caused by a worn tyre striking the sharp edge of a cats eye in the road and loses control of the vehicle, which veers off the road, hits a telephone pole, jumps over a brook, bounces back on the road and ends up wheels down in the brook on the other side of the road killing de Portago by severing his body in half, his American co-driver/navigator and nine onlookers, five of whom were children, and injuring a further twenty.

Another of Ferrari's drivers, the veteran Piero Taruffi (Patrick Dempsey), completes the round trip to Brescia and wins the race in the Ferrari 315S, ahead of Wolfgang von Trips (Wyatt Carnell) also driving a Ferrari 315S in second place and Olivier Gendebien (Brett Smrz) and Jacques Washer in the Ferrari 250 GT LWB Scaglietti in third place, so completing a top three sweep for the Prancing Horse. Ferrari is blamed by the media for de Portago's lethal accident, and Laura cashes her cheque to enable Enzo to bribe journalists into deflecting the blame away from him and Ferrari. She signs over the full rights to the company, requesting that in return, Enzo refrain from giving Piero the Ferrari name until after she is dead. Enzo agrees, and later accompanies Piero to his half-brother's grave. In 1961 Ferrari and Enzo were cleared of any culpability in the crash at Guidizzolo. Laura died in 1978 and in 1989 Piero was nominated as vice-Chairman of Ferrari, and in 1990 he legally changed his name from Piero Lardi Ferrari to Piero Ferrari. He remains vice-Chairman of the Ferrari automotive company to this day. 

With Michael Mann's 'Ferrari' the Director here has delivered his trademark attention to detail and his top notch production values, coupled with two compelling performances from Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz, and a story covering a few months in 1957 that intertwines the emotion and turmoil of Enzo's personal life with his ambitions on the race track and the need to keep his company afloat. 'Ferrari' is, when all is said and done, a character study of a racing driver turned entrepreneur who is determined to put his sports cars on the map, build a company that will be the envy of motor enthusiasts everywhere long after he is gone, and who is able to overcome adversity in his personal and business life by always looking forward and never looking back. My one criticism of 'Ferrari' is that the film seems to look upon the 1957 Mille Miglia as the first time that Ferrari entered this race, when in fact Ferrari won its first Mille Miglia in 1948, followed by wins in '49, '50, '51', '52, '53, '56 and of course '57, which was the last year that the race was held in this format before being disbanded altogether in 1961 for driver and spectator safety reasons. 

'Ferrari' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

WASP NETWORK : Sunday 21st June 2020.

In these very trying and testing times for us all that has seen many cinema's, Odeon's, and movie theatres around the world close their doors for the foreseeable future because of the escalating threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus taking an ever increasing hold on the world at large, many film and television productions halted in their tracks indefinitely, and new film releases pushed back to some future date when some sense of movie going normalcy is expected to resume, I have, needless to say, had to adapt to this new world order. And so with my usual Reviews of the latest cinematic releases being curtailed, instead I will post my Review of the latest release movies showing on Netflix until such time as the regular outing to my local multiplex or independent theatre can be reinstated.

In the last few weeks then, a number of new feature films have landed at Netflix - of which I review as below 'Wasp Network' which went live on the streaming service on 19th June and which I saw from the comfort of my own sofa on Sunday 21st June.

'WASP NETWORK' is Directed and written for the screen by Olivier Assayas, the French film maker whose previous credits include 2016's 'Personal Shopper' for which he collected the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival, 2014's 'Clouds of Sils Maria' and 2010's 'Carlos' amongst others. Based on the 2011 book 'The Last Soldiers of the Cold War' written by Fernando Morais this is the  true story of the 'Cuban Five'. The film saw its World Premier screening at the Venice Film Festival in early September last year and thereafter at TIFF, the San Sebastien International Film Festival, the  New York Film Festival, and the BFI London Film Festival before its release in France in late January this year. Picked up by Netflix in January for distribution on its streaming service, the film has garnered mixed or average Reviews so far.

It is 1990, Havana, Cuba and we meet Rene Gonzalez (Edgar Ramirez), his wife Olga (Penelope Cruz) and their six year old daughter Irma (Carolina Peraza Matamoros). Rene works as a pilot of light aircraft taking parachute jumpers up to circa 13,000 feet and seeing them skydive back down to the ground. It's a living, but he longs for more. After his shift, he goes home to his loving family, and the next day wakes up to complete the same routine all over again. Saying farewell to Olga and Irma in the morning, he drives out to the airport, walks up to the air traffic control tower, sabotages the two way radios, and steals a plane and flies to Miami, Florida to begin a whole new life, leaving his family behind. Quizzed by authorities and the press as to the reason why he has defected, he gives a rational explanation of how he's had it with the authoritarian Castro regime and how Castro's days are numbered with the crippled Soviet Union funding drying up. He goes on to say that he was born in the US and therefore has citizenship, and soon is taken in by a group of Cuban exiles and opponents of the Castro regime and given three months of free accommodation and hooked up with some influential people who offer him a job as a pilot.

Flying for the 'Brothers to the Rescue' run out of Florida and headed up by Jose Basulto (Leonardo Sbaraglia) they operate against the Cuban regime by seeking to destabilise Cuba's tourist industry and operate through covert military means. They frequently breach Cuban airspace which they are warned against every time but are prepared to take the risk of military intervention, which never amounts to anything more than 'sabre rattling'. The 'Cuban American National Foundation' (CANF) also established in Florida and headed up by Jorge Mas Canosa (Omar Ali), together with Brothers to the Rescue drop propaganda leaflets over Havana, lead illegal boat immigrants from Cuba to Florida undetected by the US Coast Guard, drop off supplies to them en route, and also smuggle drugs and weapons in and out of the US. They also engaged in various terrorist activities co-ordinated by Luis Posada Carriles (Tony Plana).

Juan Pablo Roque (Wagner Moura), another Cuban pilot, also defects by swimming to Guantanamo Bay and seeks political asylum at the US Naval Base there. He is granted asylum and arrives in Miami, where shortly afterwards he is introduced to recently divorced Ana Martinez (Ana de Armas). He is also offered a job as a pilot flying for Brothers to the Rescue and CANF, and engaged in various nefarious deeds which pays him very well, as well as being a paid FBI Informer at US$1500 a week, but which he refuses to tell Ana the source of his money, and adds further that he doesn't tell her everything about him. She also asks why is he carrying around a cell phone (remembering that in the early '90's cellphones were only just emerging on the market), and he makes up some excuse to shield her from the truth. Despite such altercations and differences of opinion, they seemingly hit it off and soon enough are married in a very lavish wedding.

About half way through the film we first hear mention of the Wasp Network - a secret Cuban governmental organisation tasked with the highly confidential mission of infiltrating the Miami based paramilitary groups dedicated to reversing the damage inflicted by Fidel Castro's rule over Cuba. The Wasp Network is directed by Gerardo Hernandez aka Manuel Viramontez (Gael Garcia Bernal). As agents working for both sides, the members of the Wasp Network, the Cuban Five (Gerardo Hernandez, Rene Gonzalez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez of which the latter three go unmentioned in this film) who had left Cuba and arrived in South Florida to great shakes as they voiced their opinions against the actions of the Cuban government, but back home, those families and friends of the five were placed in at times compromising and awkward positions and made outcasts because of their connection to the apparent traitors.

While the Wasp Network worked undercover, the American government continued its own investigation into the Cuban presence stateside. In February 1996, three Brothers to the Rescue Cessna light aircraft take off from Miami. Flying over Cuban airspace as they had done countless times in recent years, they receive a warning from the Cuban military that they are at risk. Choosing to ignore these warnings, this time two Cuban Air Force MiG fighter jets take down two of the aircraft carrying  a total four personnel. The third aircraft flown by Basulto escaped. The day before the shootdown Roque turns his back on his marriage to Ana and returns to Cuba stating publicly that he was a mole who worked to infiltrate anti-Castro organisations. When asked in a live TV interview what he misses most about his life in Miami he says his Jeep Cherokee, while Ana is watching him on screen from Florida - gobsmacked!

After a few years of cutting through lots of red tape and jumping through governmental hoops, Olga and Irma are finally permitted to leave Cuba and join Rene in Miami. Before doing so Viramontez meets with Olga and advises her that her husband is in fact no traitor, but more a hero. He confides in her that Rene is in fact a Cuban intelligence agent who successfully infiltrated CANF, and for the sake of herself, her husband and daughter, her family, friends, himself, the Cuban establishment and the Wasp Network she must maintain this secret to herself and not discuss it with anyone, under any circumstances. She agrees and leaves the office, and the next day is on a plane with Irma (now played by Osdeymi Pastrana Miranda) bound for Florida.

With the three reunited in Miami, it's not long before Olga finds steady work and Irma settles into school, and shortly thereafter Olga announces that she is pregnant with their second daughter, whom they intend calling Ivette. Meanwhile, in El Salvador, Raul Cruz Leon (Nolan Guerra Fernandez) in mid-1997 is recruited by anti-Castroists to place C4 bombs in four Havana hotels - The Copacabana, the Hotel Capri, the Hotel Nacional de Cuba and the Melia Cohiba Hotel with the aim of destabilising the recently resurgent Cuban tourist industry. Whilst the four bombs all successfully detonated in September 1997 there was only one fatality - that of an Italian tourist at the Copacabana and eleven other injuries. The very same day Leon is apprehended by the Cuban Police while exiting another hotel where he was due to collect his money for a job well done - money that he never saw! Thereafter the Wasp Network abandons Leon to his own fate. Carriles admitted to organising the bombings but was never prosecuted.

Finally, some months later by which time Olga has given birth to baby Ivette, the FBI closes in on the Wasp Network and arrests the whole network of agents including Rene Gonzalez and Manuel Viramontez. Combined they face charges of conspiracy to commit espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, acting as an agent of a foreign government, drug and gun running and a few other US deemed illegal activities. In a TV interview Fidel Castro admits to his knowledge of Cuban intelligence agents operating on US soil.

While serving out his jail term, Rene is visited often by Olga. He is offered a plea deal by the FBI in exchange for information but refuses to inform on his colleagues and his government. He serves twelve years in prison and was released in late 2011. Olga was arrested and served three months in jail, before being reunited with her daughters and deported back to Cuba. Manuel Veramontez was sentenced to a double life sentence but was freed after fifteen years as part of a spy swap. Raul Cruz Leon is still serving a thirty year jail term for planting the four Havana bombs and Carriles died in 2018, aged 90. Juan Pablo Roque never flew again and had financial difficulties, while his estranged wife Ana sued the Cuban government for punitive damages amounting to US$27M, but has only ever received about US$200K.

I found 'Wasp Network' largely underwhelming which is a disappointment given the credibility and what we're used to from Writer and Director Assayas and his assembled all star cast consisting of Cruz, Ramirez, de Armas, Bernal and Moura. This is a muddled film where the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts, as its offers up too many plot contrivances and then leaves you hanging in mid-air without any closure as it ebbs and flows between too many characters, situations and locations to make for a coherent story. On the positive front, the production values are well realised with some stunning aerial photography of the corridor between US and Florida, shots of Havana from the air and the vibe of the early '90's are all captured thoughtfully. The principle cast especially Cruz as the initially abandoned then all forgiving and loyal dutiful wife, and Ramirez as the focused stoic double agent is so much better here than he was in 'The Last Days of American Crime' reviewed here just two weeks ago, give admirable performances, but the others are all undercooked. And despite all the sabre rattling, political intrigue and the ongoing strain of US/Cuban relations, Castro remained in power as President until 2008 and remained in office until 2011, which makes you wonder what was it all for anyway?

'Wasp Network' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS : Tuesday 14th November 2017.

'MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS' which I caught earlier this week is the classic 1934 Agatha Christie murder mystery novel upon which this film is based, that has been committed to the big and small screens a number of times over the years, most notably in 1974 as Directed by Sidney Lumet and starred an ensemble cast. That film was nominated for six Academy Awards and won one - for Best Supporting Actress going to Ingrid Bergman. It was also nominated for ten BAFTA's and walked away with three for Best Supporting Actor and Actress to John Gielgud and Ingrid Bergman respectively, and Best Music. All up the film won nine awards and received a further sixteen nominations, and at the Box Office returned US$36M from its US$1.4M budget outlay. The films cast included Albert Finney as the super sleuth gentleman detective Hercule Poirot, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, Michael York, Richard Widmark, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Vanessa Redgrave and Jacqueline Bisset. In 2001 a made for television movie was released of the same name, featuring the same storyline, and the same title but set in the present day and starring Alfred Molina as Hercule Poirot, Peter Strauss and Leslie Caron. Then in 2010 the popular long running television series 'Agatha Christie's Poirot' with David Suchet as the detective aired in Season 12, Episode 3 'Murder on the Orient Express' which featured the acting talents of Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Chastain, Barbara Hershey, Toby Jones, David Morrissey, and Eileen Atkins. There has also been a BBC Radio 4 serialisation of the book and a video game adaptation over the years too.

And so now in 2017 we have this latest lavish reiteration of Christie's famed novel with Kenneth Branagh on Directing duty and starring as the hirsute Belgian detective Hercule Poirot with a ensemble cast for this production that reads like a Who's Who of British and American acting talent. The film was released in the UK on 2nd November, and in the US and Australia on 9th November. and has so far grossed US$105M off the back of a US$55M production Budget. The film has generated mixed Reviews from Critics, but all universally praise the casting and production values.

The film opens up with a scene setter in a 1934 Jerusalem at the site of The Wailing Wall where Poirot announces to a gathered crowd of onlookers who the culprit is in the theft of a valuable religious artefact. Job done, but not without a scuffle, he is ready to depart to Istanbul to travel onward to London to work on another case that needs finalising, and in between time he is to take some much needed R&R. In Istanbul, while checking out the culinary delights of a local market he happens across an old friend, and a Director of the Orient Express, Bouc (Tom Bateman) who offers the Detective a sleeper cabin on the unusually booked out Orient Express. Managing to squeeze Poirot into a shared cabin, we quickly grab glimpses of the other well to do passengers as they board, that Poirot will be sharing his journey with. The first of which is a Caroline Hubbard (Michelle Pfeiffer) a trophy ex-wife to several ex-husbands, clearly wealthy and hungry for a man, who instantly tries to chat up Poirot, but he'll have none of her advances, preferring to keep himself very much to himself, and besides, he's got a Charles Dickens book to catch up on.

As the train gets underway, Poirot is introduced to Samuel Ratchett (Johnny Depp), an American businessman who looks more like a mobster than a professional purveyor of fine arts, collectables and antiquities that he claims he is new into and still learning as he goes. Ratchett is joined on the journey by his bookkeeper come lawyer come personal assistant Hector MacQueen (Josh Gad). Over a pastry in the dining car, Ratchett confides in Poirot that he has recently undertaken some dodgy deals back in Istanbul selling fake wares, and those hard done by now want pay back and are vying for his blood, and sending him threatening letters. Ratchett pleads with Poirot to act as his personal bodyguard, for a handsome fee, for the duration of the trip to ensure his safety, but Poirot politely declines. Later that night while Poirot is trying to get to sleep he is constantly disturbed by noises coming from outside his cabin in the interconnecting hallway. Later on that night when the commotion has settled down, a lightning bolt strikes the side of a snow covered peak sending an avalanche crashing down upon the advancing train, causing the engine carriage to derail, halting the journey in its tracks on a remote mountain side.

The next morning, Poirot learns that Ratchett was murdered in his bed sometime during the previous night - stabbed a dozen times in the chest. Poirot and Bouc investigate the crime scene and the murder case, with Bouc being the only non-suspect on the train, because he slept in a different carriage the night before, unlike everyone else. Initial evidence points to a suspect working alone, with Caroline Hubbard claiming that during the night there was a strange intruder present in her cabin. Several clues are left in Ratchett's cabin, including an unused pipe cleaner, a fine lace bloodstained handkerchief with the letter 'H' engraved, and a partially destroyed note linking Ratchett to the case of an abducted child Daisy Armstrong some years previously.

The Armstrong child was held for ransom, and then killed. Ratchett is identified as being John Cassetti, the murderer of the child. Grieving, Daisy's mother Sonia collapses and gives birth to a still born premature baby and dies in child birth, and shortly thereafter, her father Colonel Armstrong commits suicide. The family's housemaid Susanne, was found guilty of the murder on trumped up charges allowing Cassetti to go free, and she hanged herself while in custody, only to be determined innocent after the fact.

More evidence is uncovered during the course of the investigation, while rail workers dig out the engine carriage from the snow. Poirot and Bouc systematically interview all the other suspects gathering further insights into their individual backgrounds, possible motives, and sorting through the lies from the truth. Poirot discovers through his expert powers of deduction, that all suspects are in some way linked to the Armstrong household, the family, or the ensuing court case. Whilst interviewing Governess Mary Debenham (Daisy Ridley) who upto now has been the most aloof about Ratchett maintaining her silence, Poirot is confronted by Dr. John Arbuthnot (Leslie Odom Jnr.) who claims responsibility for the murder, and who is also the secret interracial love interest of the Governess. A scuffle breaks out, in which Arbuthnot, a trained former sniper, shoots Poirot in the arm, but who is then incapacitated by Bouc. Poirot however, can see that Arbuthnot had never intended to kill him, and was acting out of love for Mary Debenham.

By now, Poirot has amassed enough evidence, but the prime suspect still eludes him. He calls everyone together in the nearby train tunnel while the rail workers set the engine carriage back on the tracks. He has two theories. One is that there was a lone murderer who masqueraded as a Conductor, killed Ratchett and fled the scene of the crime undetected under cover of darkness. The other is much more complex and involves every passenger suspect aboard the train being linked to the Armstrong's, to Susanne and the subsequent trial in some way - giving them all a possible motive.

Poirot concludes ultimately that each and every one of them had reason for killing Ratchett and therefore in this case, unlike every one of the cases he has solved before, there is no right or wrong, it is not black and it is not white, there is no guilty nor innocent, and as such he will have to live with that imbalance. This outcome does not sit easy with the Super Sleuth, but he must accept it on this occasion and under these circumstances.

Upon arrival at the next train stop, Poirot presents the evidence of a killer acting alone to the Yugoslavian Police, who accept his story, leaving the passengers to continue their onward journey, each wrestling with their conscience. As the Detective leaves the train, a messenger alerts him that he is required urgently in Egypt, as there has been a murder on the Nile. Poirot accepts the case, forgoing his much needed R&R, as the Orient Express departs the station, and he jumps into a waiting car.

The film also stars Judi Dench, Willem Dafoe, Derek Jacobi, Penelope Cruz, Olivia Colman and Lucy Boynton amongst others in supporting roles offering minimal dialogue that belittle their acting credentials leaving them to wallow in the background. There is no doubt that Branagh has cast an impressive line up of A-List Actors who bring a gravitas to the proceedings and no doubt a pulling power into movie theatres the world over. The production values are high and the era has been recreated faithfully with its costumes and set designs, and the CGI adds to the depth of this period piece whodunit with its stunning vistas. But, is that enough to carry off this film? Despite such an ensemble cast, I couldn't help feeling that our amassed group of fine acting talent were left wanting to do more with their characters, but instead are largely sidelined with very little dialogue of note. Branagh meanwhile, chews up every scene and with his enormous well kempt moustache arriving fifteen seconds in the room before he does, he puts together the pieces of this murder jigsaw puzzle with relative ease it seems whilst telling everybody that he is the greatest Detective the world has ever seen. And, when the ending comes and the big reveal, it's all a bit of an anti-climax really, that sees Poirot going back on his principles that have served him so well throughout his career to date - first time for everything I guess, including his Oscar worthy facial fuzz extraordinaire. A classic story that looks good on the screen and has a lot going for it, but ultimately are period piece whodunits still a drawcard for the modern audience . . . . only you can answer that one!

Depending on the success of this film, Branagh has indicted his willingness to adapt further Christie novels involving the master of investigative deduction, Hercule Poirot, and judging by the closing scenes of this film it looks as though 'Death on the Nile' could be up next.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-