A raw bunch of Soviet conscripts are drilled into shape on the training ground and dropped into the thick of it in Afghanistan. A big box office hit in Russia this may, like films about the American invasion of Vietnam, be politically naive, but as a war drama it pulls no punchs and, with the possible exception of a silly, poorly edited final battle scene, delivers the goods in superb fashion. find out more...

1999 and Sierra Leone is in the midst of civil war, the rebels infamously using an army of indoctrinated children to do their genocidal work. In the midst of this bloodshed two unlikely men are drawn together, one a desperate father whose son has become a rebel soldier, the other a self-serving white Rhodesian mercenary in search of an immense uncut diamond. The two are bound together by their wildly divergent, but inextricably linked, quests and it is here that the action of the film lies as th find out more...

 

 

Scrat’s pursuit of the nirvana acorn causes yet another continental cataclysm which plunges our three bestest buddies into yet another perilo find out more...

Bryan is an ex-government operative whose job title, whilst slightly unclear, had involved being able to kill anyone with just about anything. When Bryan's teenage daughter is kidnapped by slave traders he launches into a one-man mission to make them realise what a huge mistake they've made. 'Taken' is a balls out action thriller with a smattering of schmaltz (paternal love), some pretty reactionary viewpoints and some awesomely two dimensional baddies, just in case you were thinking of doubting find out more...

US Army Sergeant Will James, Sergeant JT Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge comprise the Bravo Company's bomb disposal unit and it is their 38 days together in the chaotic and bloody period following the US/UK led occupation of Iraq that we closely follow. Sanborn plays it by the rules, Eldridge is insecure about his soldiering role and James is seen by his colleagues as a dangerously committed loose cannon and a threat to their survival chances. Hurt Locker is a slick, well directed, performe find out more...

Crusading frontier policeman Captain Stanley captures the fugitive Burns brothers, Charley and Mikey, at the scene of a bloody rape and murder. Informing Charley that he must kill his older brother, Arthur, in order to avoid the execution of Mikey, Stanley retreats to an old jailhouse and awaits the bloody outcome. Director John Hillcoat's second collaboration with Nick Cave (here contributing the film's screenplay and soundtrack), is a taut and often brutal character study of desperation ami find out more...

Set in an alternative America of the 1980s, at a time when the US and the USSR seemed set for an apocalyptic war, a group of retired Masked Heroes reunite after one of their number is murdered. What they uncover seems to point toward a greater, more sinister plot. find out more...