Gabrielle Page

Extremely clever people deceive each other and us making everyone hoot with laughter whilst doing it. Usually the most ridiculous tale turns out to be truthful.

This television program rather stretches credulity but is entertaining all the same, if you ignore the patent holes in the plot devices such as no way would immigration officers be able to hold anyone in a room minus any outside contact then proceed to interview them about a crime supposedly committed on foreign soil. Then hand you over to “random” authorities so you can be shipped back to the Country you have just left. We all know this wouldn’t happen but for the purposes of good television it does. So leaving aside gaping plot holes and various unbelievable chases it is your entertaining spy type fare peopled by attractive beings. I have withheld one star for lazy plotting. I know, I know, could I have done better with my writing, well the answer is I’m not sure but I like to think I would get basic interview procedures right!

Terrible over-wrought lazy film that relies on ridiculous characters that a teenager could have written in their bedroom in an afternoon. Such an awful waste of everyone’s talent and time resulting in a complete dog’s breakfast. The moggy was one of the best things about the film being utterly believable unlike everything else. All I can say is it probably paid people’s bills for a while but will go down as nobody’s finest work. If

Glacial pace thin over-stretched tale slightly redeemed by Bill Nighy’s beautifully nuanced performance as a neurotic hypochondriac obsessed with the avoidance of drafts. In summation a period soap that needs a lot more lather.

What a shocking waste of a fabulous cast, shut into a straight jacketed farrago. The script is self-indulgent, over ornamented with vocalised flourishes that offer no character insight nor does it advance the story, such as it is. The central character Mank has been badly injured in a car smash but for reasons that aren’t clear he is moved into a house with a small staff devoted to taking care of his needs. In exchange it seems he is required to deliver a script. All the caregivers are female but seem peripheral to the action. Such as it is. Knowing him to be a stalwart drunk why would a “friend” also install a drunk’s paradise of doctored liquor. This seems counter intuitive if you are hoping to get a coherent cogent piece of work at the end of his sojourn. Is this person looking to sabotage Manks efforts on every level. Mank appears to be a dedicated hopeless drunk also married to an enabler. At the start wifey, also known as poor Sarah is undressing him as he is incapable. His parting remark was why did she put up with him. She says she doesn’t know,I want to shout at the screen telling her to run out the door and not to look back. His appalling behaviour begs the question, just why did she put up with this unpleasant drunk. He is charmless and boorish unable to pick up on the nuances of distress in others, making cheap cracks about fighter pilots to his erstwhile secretary even as she gets a letter saying he is MIA as the ship carrying his plane has gone down off the coast of Norway. Drunks are extremely uninteresting by and large, is there anything more tedious than the company of drunks. Their emotional incontinence wracks up my total lack of patience for those that cannot control their behaviour. Only babies and those under 12 should be given the grace of complete forgiveness not maudlin middle-aged men. Or women! Although all the women in this are all rather buttoned up apart from Rosebud, paramour of Randolf Hearst. Rosebud is used as a device to raise the concerns of the times, treated as an indulged child able to voice anything because as she says who listens to me. It just doesn’t jell as there is nobody who engenders your interest or compassion. A wasted opportunity and the black and white staging added less than zero. Dull dull dull.

Disappointed beyond measure and definitely not Armando’s finest work. I have loved all his previous works but I couldn’t engage with any of the characters. Dev Patel did his best, I thought his role was the best bit. This has more holes than Swiss cheese. Utter balderdash.