Layer Cake (2004)

"England. Typical. Even drug dealers don't work weekends."

I'd wager this film was not entirely without influence in Daniel Craig winning a certain high profile role a couple of years later, but it deserves recognition for far more than that. The directorial debut of Matthew Vaught after producing Lock, Stock and Snatch, it superficially resembles them with its gangster subject matter and its fast, witty directorial style.

Except it’s more than this. Layer Cake is certainly a fast-paced gangster film with a complex plot full of layers upon layers of motives and double crosses in the dangerous, impossible to escape world of criminality. But it’s unnamed protagonist is deliberately different from the stereotype- middle class, educated, professional and unflashy, he’s only in crime because of the money to be made from the drugs trade, and intends to make his fortune and then retire. Naturally, he isn’t going to be allowed to do this for all sorts of reasons involving various British character actors.

It’s amusing to see the character of the Duke as a contrast; clearly intended as a piss-take of the typical British cinematic gangster, he’s a joke, out of his league and inevitably doomed. Our protagonist is different, right?

Over a riveting couple of hours we slowly discover that no, he isn’t really, in spite of his smarts and his apparent sense. This is not a world from which one can ever escape, or expect a long life to expectancy. However clever he is, however he may run rings round his many sudden enemies after an ecstasy deal gone wrong, this world will kill him- and it’s fitting that he should be killed over a girl, randomly, after he thinks he’s got out.

What adds even more depth, though, is that the film is about something. Once there was cops and robbers, then along cane the drugs trade. As the opening narration says, one day all this will be legal. But, for the past several decades, prohibition has spawned a shocking amount of unnecessary crimes and innocent victims. And that’s the moral of this film; prohibition has blood on its hands.

Paddington (2014)

“Um, you're not using those ear brushes to clean your mouth are you, Mr Brown?"

Ok, this isn't my usual type of film, but I happened to watch this on the telly with my wife and daughter. Any you know what? It's bloody brilliant, far better than, frankly, it needed to be, genuinely clever and witty, Little Miss Llamastrangler was glued to the telly, and I can't say enough nice things about it.

I have only vague memories of the books and 1970s BBC series, so I can't compare the film to Paddington's previous outings in other media. But this is a perfectly plotted film where all the characters, even the stuffy Mr Brown, are ether fundamentally likeable or splendidly comical grotesques or both, unless they happen to be the delightfully dastardly Miss Clyde. The film knowingly plays up all the London visual cliches for an international audience and, most heartwarming for these days of Brexit, tabloid stupidity and a worrying insularity, is fundamentally a positive story about an immigrant, an asylum seeker, who may look different from everybody else but is just as easy to love.

All this, and a cockney Peter Capaldi. The film is quirky, uplifting, gripping and frequently laugh out loud funny. It's a film that has to be seen, and not jut for those of us who can use our young children as an excuse. Brilliant stuff.

Henry VI, Part 1 (Dominic Cooke, 2016)

"A day will come when York shall claim his own..."

It's been four years, but the BBC have finally got around to doing Shakespeare's Wars of the Roses plays under their The Hollow Crown imprint. Strictly speaking this isn't Henry VI, Part 1: we end the much-truncated production about halfway through Part 2. But it's a welcome attempt at some rarely-filmed plays and the cast, including those listed below, includes Philip Glenister, David Troughton and Michael Gambon.

Like its Hollow Crown predecessors, this is a straightforward retelling with 15th century costume and no directorial flourishes. That means it's all reliant on the acting, and the acting is superb. This is a play from a very young Shakespeare- one of his early hits- and isn't well known, also being somewhat lacking in famous lines, much as Shakespeare's dialogue is never less than sublime, even in his youth. There aren't, as far as I'm aware, any film versions to compare this to, so in spite of being good rather than great it's sort of the best by default.

We begin with huge vistas of Dover's white cliffs; this tries to be as visual as possible, in the Hollow Crown house style. But it's all about the performances. I haven't seen this play before, truncated or not, but I much enjoyed it, raising perhaps an eyebrow at just how wet the King is, how women are just chattels in this world, the very derogatory portrayal of Joan of Arc, but most of all, as ever with Shakespeare, getting drunk in the language.

The production is merely good; the play (or play and a half) is sublime.