Son of a Gun Review

Young, naive JR is sent to prison for a lowly crime where he quickly becomes the target of some very dangerous men on the inside. Luckily, the fresh faced JR is also noticed by Brendan Lynch (Ewan MacGregor), a professional criminal who takes JR under his wing and protects him while on the inside. Brendan’s help comes at a cost though, and JR is soon embroiled with a daring prison escape. Once on the outside, JR becomes an apprentice to Brendan as they plan a major robbery but it soon becomes clear to JR that he may be just a pawn in a very dangerous world of high stakes criminality.

Forgetting one of the most ludicrous prison escapes you will ever see on screen, Son of a Gun is actually a generally grounded and gritty look at professional criminals in Australia’s underworld. The film is filled with shady characters with questionable motives and some seriously seedy crime bosses. JR is lucky he has the brains to keep up, and perhaps stay one step ahead, of these characters as it looks increasingly like behind their charm and banter, they are all willing to make JR a sacrificial lamb.

The father and son dynamic between JR and Brendan is more interesting than the romance that develops between JR and Alicia Vikander’s endangered damsel. It’s a shame Vikander does not get a fully rounded character to show off more than just her striking beauty but instead Ewan MacGregor seizes his role as an unpredictable psycho and relishes it. He is the ruthless spark at the centre of the story and provides the film with its most interesting and volatile character.

Son of a Gun is hampered by predictable plotting but it still manages some very tense set pieces. Starting off as a realistic prison drama, it soon emerges into the Aussie sunlight and develops into something a little more fanciful on its way to a wonderfully tense heist as the criminals go after a horde of gold. The double and triple crosses won’t be surprising to many, but decent performances and some thrilling action keep Son of a Gun from firing too many blanks.

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Testament of Youth Review

Vera Brittain fights the repressive attitudes of pre-WW1 British society, including her parents who argue that she should not be going to university to study, but instead concentrating her efforts on finding a decent man to marry. She is a bright, determined young woman who gains entry to Oxford just as she falls for a man on the eve of the First World War. Brittain is forced into making the difficult decision of abandoning her studies that she worked so hard for, in order to support the man she loves and her only brother who have gone to fight at the front in France.

Based on Brittain’s memoir of her experiences during the war, Testament of Youth is an incredibly potent anti-war film where very little fighting is actually glimpsed. Forget those ‘war is hell’ movies that dwell on the blood, guts and gory glory, Brittain’s story swims in the waters of the women like Vera who were left at home to pick up the pieces. A traumatised, devastated generation were born out of the trenches and while the men leaped at the chance to fight for their country, the women who made incredible sacrifices and nursed the wounded both at home and at the front are undoubtedly just as heroic.

Alicia Vikander, so impressive in Ex Machina (also out in January), delivers a heart breaking performance as Brittain. From driven young woman to tragic heroine to fierce pacifist, Brittain endures incredible hardship and Vikander never puts a foot wrong even with the camera clamped to frequent close ups on her face. Kit Harington is also striking, making a decent break from his best known role in Game of Thrones, and the rest of the supporting cast, including Taron Egerton, Miranda Richardson and Dominic West also get effective moments to shine.

It’s a shame that the real story is not considered emotional enough, without going for a couple of clichés like having a tragedy occurring on a wedding day. Nevertheless, this is an incredibly moving story, driven by a brilliant performance from Vikander and a vital message that still resonates tragically today.

Watch the trailer:

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