Category: Thriller

The Good Liar

Career con artist Roy can hardly believe his luck when he meets a well-to-do widow on-line. As Betty opens her home and life to him, Roy is surprised to find himself caring about her, turning what should be a cut-and-dry swindle into the most treacherous tightrope walk of his life.

Shown: 6 April 2022

Exminster Film Club Rating: 91%

BBFC Ratings Badge 15

The Good Liar Plot Synopsis

Consummate con man Roy Courtnay (Ian McKellen) has set his sights on his latest mark: the recently widowed Betty McLeish (Helen Mirren), worth millions. And Roy means to take it all.

From their very first meeting, Roy begins plying Betty with his tried and true manipulations, and Betty, who seems quite taken with him, is soon going along for the ride. But this time, what should have been a simple swindle escalates into a cat-and-mouse game with the ultimate stakes—revealing more insidious deceptions that will take them both through a minefield of danger, intrigue and betrayal.

Film Reviews

This movie rattles along with terrific energy and dash and the flashback sequences show that it’s actually far more daring and ambitious that you might expect. It’s a great duel between McKellen and Mirren.

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

As a movie, The Good Liar is just so-so, but as a master class in performance and star quality, it’s a pleasure.

Moira MacDonald, The Seattle Times

Official Film Trailer for The Good Liar

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< March 2022

Rear Window

A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbours from his Greenwich Village courtyard apartment window, and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder, despite the scepticism of his fashion-model girlfriend.

Shown: 2 March 2022

Exminster Film Club Rating: 92%

2019 BBFC Ratings Badge PG
  • Date of release: 1954
  • Running time: 1h 52m
  • Director: Alfred Hitchcock
  • Writer: John Michael Hayes and Cornell Woolrich
  • Country: USA
  • Language: English
  • Links: IMDB Rotten Tomatoes Metacritic BBFC

Rear Window Plot Synopsis

L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies is an immobilized photo-journalist who, after breaking his leg photographing a racetrack accident, finds himself wheelchair bound and confined to the walls of his apartment. His rear window looks out onto a courtyard and several other apartments, where the binocular-wielding Jefferies spends his days as a voyeur spying on his neighbours. Jefferies gradually becomes more and more engrossed with this activity of his, and soon brings his girlfriend, Lisa, in on the thrill of his voyeurism. It’s all fun and games for the two until they witness what they believe to be a murder in progress, becoming increasingly convinced as they continue to observe the apartment. [KP]

Film Reviews

The most densely allegorical of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpieces, moving from psychology to morality to formal concerns and finally to the theological. It is also Hitchcock’s most innovative film in terms of narrative technique, discarding a linear story line in favour of thematically related incidents, linked only by the powerful sense of real time created by the lighting effects and the revolutionary ambient sound track.

Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

Hitchcock confines all of the action to this single setting and draws the nerves to the snapping point in developing the thriller phases of the plot. He is just as skilled in making use of lighter touches in either dialog or situation to relieve the tension when it nears the unbearable. Interest never wavers during the 112 minutes of footage.

William Brogdon, Variety

Official Film Trailer for Rear Window

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The Courier

A gripping spy thriller which tells the true story of an unassuming businessman who is recruited into The Cold War in an effort to provide crucial intelligence needed to defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Shown: 2 February 2022

Exminster Film Club Rating: 92%

BBFC Ratings Badge 12A

The Courier Plot Synopsis

A true-life spy thriller. The Courier is the story of an unassuming British businessman who is recruited into one of the greatest international conflicts in history. At the behest of the UK’s MI-6 and a CIA operative, he forms a covert, dangerous partnership with a ​Soviet officer in an effort to provide crucial intelligence needed to prevent a nuclear confrontation and defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Film Reviews

The Courier is a tense, well-executed spy drama that wisely focuses on character and performance more than thrills, knowing that if we actually care about these men it will drastically heighten every narrowed glance, near miss, and frightful chase. It’s not always the freshest adventure, but that’s when the acting carries the piece and breathes life into these unlikely heroes.

Matt Fowler, IGN

A triumphant, inspiring movie about the heroism of human decency, Ironbark is a rock solid spy drama that, if it came out 20 years ago, would have easily become a mainstay on TNT or TBS. Hollywood doesn’t make movies like this very often anymore, and if does prove to be part of a last gasp of character-focused period thrillers, at least the genre is going out with some style.

Ben Pearson, Slash Film

Official Film Trailer for The Courier

Review From an EFC Member

The film based on a true story about an English salesman who was recruited by British intelligence to work with a soviet spy in the USSR during the Cold War.

It was an absorbing film and the acting all very convincing which is all I personally want from a film .

I don’t think I appreciated the seriousness of the whole affair at the time but I suppose as a teenager at that time there were other things to think about!

Chris
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