Army of Thieves (2021)

This is a decently fun heist romp which focuses more on the main five characters than actually what they are doing! The plot is fairly simple, there being three 'supersafes' out there in various establishments holding increasingly large sums of cash, depending on how difficult each is to break into. The film/story is a prequel to the Zack Snyder creation Army of the Dead from the same year.

We start with the tale being told by Sebastian, played by Matthias Schweighöfer (who is also the director), of a sad old man, a locksmith who created four safes which were horribly hard to break into, three of which feature in this film. The fourth one lays at the bottom of the sea with the sad man inside after he ended his own life, having lost the will to live after his wife and son died. A story that we don't hear much more about.

We switch rapidly to observing the dull life of Sebastian going about his daily work as a clerk in a bank, but who has an interesting hobby - yes, cracking safes! He decides to make a YouTube video about the aforementioned locksmith and promptly publishes. As a result of this, he's invited to attend a (what appears to be underground) competition (in the style of Fight Club!) where an organisation is presenting like-minded people with challenges to crown the top safe-breaker.

Attending this event, lurking in the corners, is the super-criminal Gwendoline, looking to recruit someone to join her team of hoods, thus beginning the heist part of the film and Sebastian's introduction to the gang of (now) five. Korina is the computer nerd, Brad is the muscle, Rolph is the driver and Gwendoline the brains - and fairly nifty fighter if needed!

So, the team start planning to hit each of the three safes in their situations, using their collective skills and attributes, then legging it with the loot. We journey with the team, Mission: Impossible style, as they hit one after the other, but more importantly, the story focuses on the interplay between the characters which is arguably more interesting than what they're doing, as I said.

Each of the five has a backstory and attitude, getting them to where they are now, which we sample bit-by-bit, interwoven into the process of the heists. The dialogue between the main players is well-constructed, funny often, simple sometimes, complicated others. There's hidden agendas and sub-plots going on as we learn more about the thread between Gwendoline's and Brad's relationship, now hijacked by Sebastian and Gwendoline falling for each other! Anyway, back to the plot and the smart planning involved in order to throw the irritated Interpol detective off their scent and ensuring that the team stays one step ahead. He's very funny too, adding to the mix of humour, tension, suspense and action as they all go about their business on each side of the story and law. It really is pretty good fun and keep you smiling.

The whole cast, apart from Schweighöfer do a great job, Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones, Fast & Furious) as Gwendoline, Ruby O Fee (Polar) as Korina, Stuart Martin (Babylon) as Brad, Guz Khan (Zapped) as Rolph and Jonathan Cohen (Amanda) as Delacroix the detective. Excellent characters with super teamwork. Schweighöfer is engaging in the main leading role particularly, too - you can't help but like him, feel sorry for him, be amused by him and ultimately hope that he gets the girl! It's on Netflix if anyone fancies a look. I'm off to watch Army of the Dead now which apparently has more to do with the Zombies in America, loosely referred to in this film but not explored much.

Virus (1980)

This is the film Gareth Myles referred to on our most recent Projector Room Podcast with the late Olivia Hussey playing a small part. A cut-down version is free to view on Plex (with ads), but the original version (which you can snag on DVD still if you look hard) is quite long at just over two and a half hours. As he said, it seems to have been a Japanese collaboration project, directed by Kinji Fukasaku (Battle Royale) and littered with a cast from east and west - it's fun star-spotting!

It's a disaster movie/thriller with some scary messages about nuclear war, weapons, Covid-like implications - but also human's (and all animals) spirit to organise, re-populate and survive - or not! It starts with a bio-weapon called MM-88 which is accidentally exposed to all life on earth, except for just shy of 1000 people involved in the military and research stationed in the Antarctic (of all nations). Turns out that the virus can’t keep going in cold conditions, so the game here is to wait it out (with their remaining two-year rations) before trying to venture out until the virus is dead (along with all other forms of life) in the rest of the world.

Trouble is that nuclear missiles from Russia and America are already pointing at each other and even though there’s nobody left to set them off, one of the events that will start the launches is an earthquake. Guess what? There’s an earthquake coming in the Atlantic, so some of the people in the Arctic have to bravely head for Washington DC in their submarine to shut the systems down before they are fired (and subsequently Russia’s system auto-detects incoming, so then fires theirs back at America).

In amongst all this, back in the Arctic, there are internal wranglings aplenty about the fact that there are only 8 women amongst the survivors with which to repopulate, so you can imagine what happens there with over 800 blokes(!), and friction between people’s cultures and nationalities. Everyone under stress in order to survive and make a brave new world. As long as it doesn’t get nuked first - or even if it does!

The acting from all was very good for the day and we’re treated to some lovely scenery and wildlife shooting (depending on which version you can track down). Again, depending on version there are included harrowing scenes of bodies piled up around the world - as before everyone’s dead the news channels report and shoot footage to broadcast to those still alive. The music adds to the atmosphere often too.

I won’t spoil the ending but there are certainly plenty of questions posed about what humans are doing to the planet and much food for thought about what might become of humanity and other animals during (and/or potentially following) such a disaster - and how whatever or whomever might pull through and survive, or not. Well worth a look if you can find it, particularly the longer, original.

Fresh (2022)

Currently showing on Disney+ this bonkers gore-fest from Mimi Cave is a kinda mashup of Silence of the Lambs, Boxing Helena, The Girl in the Basement and so on. You get the idea!

There's some particularly nasty twists in this one though as to why Mr Nasty is detaining young ladies, so I won't spoil that one as the build-up to the reveal is quite well done!

We follow Noa as she's swept off her feet by Mr Nice Guy (later turning out to be Mr Nasty, with a mission) and lured into a nice (surprise) countryside weekend away. He purposely made it a surprise for reasons that become apparent (at least until her phone signal went away)! You'd like to think that girls would be more sensible, but this one wasn't!

She was played by Daisy Edgar-Jones (Twisters, Cold Feet) and very nicely too as her character leapt from desperately seeking love, to realisation of the horror she faced, to attempting to plot an escape. Yes, I guess it's a survival tale, but one with a gruesome twist and turn or three!

It's all very far-fetched of course, but many good grizzly thrillers are, so that's alright! Sebastian Stan (Captain America) plays the fruit-loop fairly convincingly and the rest of the cast keep up well-enough too. It's quite nicely constructed, fairly well shot and produced. Has a lot going for it, for this genre and worth a look for us fans of grizzle!

Dream Home (2010)

Josie Ho is the star of this bonkers Hong Kong film under the bloodthirsty control of director Ho-Cheung Pang. And bloodthirsty it is! Billed as a slasher/horror, it's just that, as a feeble plotline is tacked onto the back of the gore and maiming!

Our central character is itching to get her hands of a certain apartment but can't afford it, so goes out to ruthlessly raise money in any way she can (even letting her dad die when she could have saved him) and generating a drop in demand for said apartment (thus a cheaper price for her) by turning it into a kind of serial-killer/gore location that nobody else would want to buy!

It's all good fun really, but I'm afraid that it wants to take itself seriously instead of embracing just that! Anyway, she goes on a murderous rampage with nothing left to the imagination. Plenty of nudity too and leaping around on the timeline as it tries to give us a flavour of her abused childhood and motivators for getting up the socioeconomic ladder. Sometimes we're given dates as to where we are, other times we have to work it out. I caught it on DailyMotion, but couldn't find it anywhere else. Have fun!

Shuttle (2008)

This 2008 thriller is dark and nasty. I'll try really hard not to introduce spoilers for those who want to watch this 'cold' but will guess that from my tone, as I carry on through, most would be able to guess the issue here and where the story probably heads.

We join a pair of girls as they get off a flight in the USA inbound from Mexico somewhere. They are boisterous and clearly went to Mexico for lots of fun, one of them, for a last fling before settling down and getting married. The airport closes, just as they head through the baggage claim (so I guess it must be a small airport in the USA), and they're on the pavement wondering how to get to where they need to go.

Along comes a mini-bus with METRO written across the top/front, offering them their last chance to get to the city or spend the night outside the airport. Or walk, I guess! A couple of wise-cracking lads muscle their way in on the scene, clearly intending (one of them says so) to 'get laid' with either of the girls. The bloke driving the 'shuttle' (minibus) is not happy taking the two lads along but eventually relents, in order to keep the girls happy. There's another bloke on the bus who is a nervous wreck, wondering what his wife/family will say if he's late and is encouraging the driver to speed up.

This is where the action starts as all is not quite what it seems. The Shuttle journey gets a bit out of hand, meandering into seedy, dodgy-looking urban neighbourhoods, the driver telling them all that the main road is blocked so this is a shortcut. He reassures them that all is fine and to trust him as he's the driver. Whilst they are travelling through this area, a car drives straight at them, making the bus weave about, eventually bursting a tyre on the kerb.

As it's such a rough-looking area, they pool resources in terms of people-power and get the tyre changed as quickly as they can. However, during this process we have the first grizzly, nasty bit of horror as one of the lads is badly injured. They all leap back on the bus and the driver tells them that the hospital is only 2 miles away and that he'll head for it. They never see the hospital and this is where things start to unravel with twists and turns, people and events not being quite what they seem - and also where I need to say no more on the plot/story!

Laying aside the outcomes at the end of the film, it does indeed turn into a nasty, gory (at times) twisty-turny thriller with much abuse and unpleasantness being hurled at (particularly) the two girls. It all ends up being grizzly and chaotic, with not much left to the imagination. Clues along the way as to what's really going on are laid down, so, as I say, you'll probably get the idea at some point anyway.

The driver is played by Tony Curran (Defiance) convincingly but the limelight is stolen really by the two leads - the girls in question, played by Peyton List (The Tomorrow People, Mad Men) and Cameron Goodman (The Dead Undead) who seem to do a decent-enough job as we trail through. There's some tension here and there in the film, some of it's a bit silly, much of it dark - as the whole film is set over one night - so not only dark in tone! The claustrophobic inside of the mini-bus is often put to good use, closing the story in on the characters and audience, script is a little iffy, but yeah, OK, and pulling all these threads together it was almost believable, certainly thrilling - with the 1 hour 45 minutes passing quickly.

Yes, you can pick holes with some of it, as you can with most films, but overall it's worth a watch. Edward Anderson is the director/writer here, but I'd not heard of him and he doesn't seem to have many credits before or after this. It's not a new film, so you might need to be resourceful about how to watch it. The DVD is out there (even in used outlets) and it pops on/off of streaming/terrestrial channels now and again. Worth the hunt.

PodHubUK Podcasts for the Month of December 2024

  ...a roundup of our month of podcasting. Links to the team, communities and podcast homes on the net at the foot, so scroll down!

Phones Show Chat
Episode 830 - Camera, Battery, Charging Speed
Sunday 1st December
Matt Slegg is this week's guest on the show and in his first appearance he tells us all about the phones he's been using, always leaning towards the best camera experience. Loads of other stuff too, as always, with my initial dabble with the Pixel 9 and Steve on Folding and Skinning - as he looks forward to the latest and greatest Xperia.

Whatever Works
Episode 217 - Long Live the Postie!
Monday 2nd December
Aidan and I are back again with an hour of tinctures to amuse, inform and entertain as we discover once again Whatever Works. All sorts of goodies as always including an invisible cyclist, filthy animal, Ninja Fruit Loom, Topazy Vulcain and oodles more! Tune in, why not!

Phones Show Chat
Episode 831 - Death to the Camera Control
Sunday 8th December
Dan Carter is the guest this week so Steve and I get his thoughts on a load of mobile-related items, find out what gear he's using and delve into the past as we consider the Nokia N96, Surface Duo and Orange San Francisco. I'm all Pixel'd up and Steve, Duo'd down! Loads more, as always, so do join us.

Projector Room
Episode 176 - Minnie Magpie
Wednesday 11th December
Gareth, Allan and I are back again with our Christmas Special, delving into all things film, cinema and TV. We Mindfully Murder Something in the Barn, join Rosemary and Terry in Apartment 7A, head for a Showdown in Little Tokyo, see if the Red One is in Minnie Driver's Circle of Friends - and loads more besides. Come and join us!

Whatever Works
Episode 218 - Long Live the Postie!
Sunday 15th December
Aidan rings his, well, Santa bell - as we launch into our last-before-xmas episode! We find out once again Whatever Works - and doesn't - from Noodle bowls to Air Fryers, Weather Stations to Doughnuts, Snug Rugs to replacement clock movements - and a ton more! Available in the usual places, so do join us for an hour. Ho! Ho! Ho! ...and a bag of rain!

Phones Show Chat
Episode 832 - iPhoning it in from Barcelona
Sunday 15th December

Steve and I are joined this week for the first time by friend and supporter of the show Pip Tomlinson. We find out about the devices he uses whilst scooting around Barcelona(!), his thoughts on Android/iOS pros and cons, the state of AI and hopes for the future. I'm still in bed with Sammy, Steve pushing the boundaries with Android 15 on Surface Duo and we go all retro on the Galaxy K Zoom whilst yearning for a modern YotaPhone!

Phones Show Chat
Episode 833 - The Perfect Plus
Sunday 22nd December

Irfan Ali joins Steve and I this week again as we hear his thoughts on all things mobile, what gear he's using and how he's using it. I share my (personal) Top 5 of 2024 and Steve's onto Classic Phones and more on the Surface Duo ROM. Loads more as usual, so do join us. Steve and I wish all our listeners a cracking xmas and thank you for your interest in what we do. We'll be back with a New Year two-header show next weekend. In the meantime, bottoms-up! Hic!

Whatever Works
Episode 219 - The Coffee Sandwich!
Sunday 30th December
Aidan and I are back with you sneaking in one last 2024 edition, in which we natter for an hour about Whatever Works for us and you! Tools and Timers, Seals and Snaps, Custard and Converters, Vests and Vanilla! It's all here and oodles more as we end the year with a bang, crash, wallop! Happy New Year to all!


The Podcasts

PodHubUK - Phones Show Chat - The Phones Show - Whatever Works - Chewing Gum for the Ears - Projector Room - Tech Addicts

The MeWe Community Groups (follow the links to join up)
Phones Show Chat & The Phones Show - Whatever Works - Chewing Gum for the Ears - Projector Room - PSC Photos - PSC Videos - PSC Classifieds - Tech Addicts

The Team
Ted Salmon - Steve Litchfield - Aidan Bell - Gareth Myles - Allan Gildea

The Day of the Jackal (1973) - Revisited, Thoughts

I've taken a fresh look at this now, decades later, since watching the end of the recent TV show The Day of the Jackal (2024) which, although a great thriller, ends up being a bit daft really, James Bond style.

I was wrong about the original Jackal not taking risks though - he did. He wasn't as clinical as I'd remembered. Bedding the posh lady in the hotel and back at her estate, for one thing. And lots of the plot/getaways in the film relied on delays in information exchange by the French authorities (a sign of the older times, I guess).

It's a really cracking thriller though, edge-of-the-seat stuff, every bit as good as I remembered. The Jackal is so cool, calm, collected (mostly) in a Simon Templar (The Saint) kind of way! It's thrilling, chilling, comic in places, beautifully shot, scripted, acted by all. There's very little really to not like. If I'm nit-picking, however...

It was a bit spoiled by many of the French officials being played by frightfully British actors, not even trying not to sound frightfully British! Ha. Anyway, each of these productions had their own pros/cons. The recent TV show showed how utterly ruthless the character can be, but also, unlike the original, susceptible to the trappings, loyalties and demands of a family around him.

Speaking of Bond, I do wonder why Edward Fox wasn't in the running to play him at some point. Perhaps he was. Bond Maestro Gareth Myles tells me that he played M in Never Say Never Again (1983). Anyway, the recent TV show is a real cracker but don't forget the original film here, based on the Frederick Forsyth character/novel of the same name, and perhaps revisit it like I did. I doubt you'd regret it.