Pick of the week
The Strays
The influence of Jordan Peele is clear in this smart, snappy psychological thriller from Nathaniel Martello-White. Ashley Madekwe, so good in 2019’s County Lines, stretches herself again as Cheryl, a young Black London mum who flees her unhappy existence. We next meet her years later, but now she’s calling herself Neve and is ensconced in Home Counties comfort with a white husband (Justin Salinger) and two teenage children. However, her collection of wigs suggests a denial of her racial identity, and when this carefully manicured life is infiltrated by two people from her past – played with real edge by Rocks star Bukky Bakray and Jorden Myrie – things rapidly go downhill.
Wednesday 22 February, Netflix
***
Gravity
Alfonso Cuarón’s sci-fi thriller shows off its groundbreaking effects best on the big screen, but a sofa-based viewing should amplify the claustrophobia crucial to its success. Sandra Bullock plays an astronaut on a space shuttle hit by the debris from a destroyed Russian spy satellite. Her desperate, real-time attempts to survive – aided by George Clooney as her veteran colleague – while cooped up in a cockpit or stranded in her spacesuit give a sweaty, human dimension to a film whose characters are one leak away from the deadly vacuum of outer space.
Saturday 18 February, 7.15pm, BBC Two
***
The French Connection
Justifiably renowned for its nerve-shredding car chase through the crowded streets of New York, William Friedkin’s crime drama is also a fantastic police procedural. Brooklyn cop Popeye Doyle (an Oscar-winning Gene Hackman) and his wingman Buddy (Roy Scheider) undertake the grubby, frustrating legwork of gathering intel, staking out and tailing a major drugs ring, with an authentic feel respectful of its real-life origins. Fernando Rey brings a slippery quality to the visiting Marseille criminal who’s the focus of Popeye’s ire.
Saturday 18 February, 11.15pm, Talking Pictures TV
***
Once Upon a Time in the West
The apotheosis of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western period, his 1968 film is almost self-consciously epic. There’s that title for starters, plus the Monument Valley locations, Ennio Morricone’s dramatic score and its tale of good v evil set against the building of the railroads across America. Leone’s masterstroke is the casting of perennial nice guy Henry Fonda as the baddy – his cool blue eyes and soft voice add to his menace as the right-hand man of a train company boss. Charles Bronson, by contrast, has little to do as the good guy but play his harmonica and shoot straight.
Sunday 19 February, 2am, Sky Cinema Greats
***
The Independent
Liberal values are put under a spotlight in this political drama, with Jodie Turner-Smith as Washington news journalist Eli who uncovers financial chicanery possibly linked to Republican presidential candidate Patricia Turnbull (Ann Dowd). Meanwhile, independent Nate Sterling (John Cena) is making waves in the race. It’s hardly All the President’s Men, but there’s some West Wing-style intrigue and Brian Cox is good value as Eli’s grizzled colleague.
Friday 24 February, 9.55am, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere
***
Pixie
This crime caper set in Sligo is the sort of jaunty rural comedy-drama the Irish seem capable of producing at the drop of a hat. Olivia Cooke, of House of the Dragon fame, carries the film as the titular stepdaughter of a criminal boss (Colm Meaney). When two callow youths, played by Ben Hardy and Daryl McCormack, stumble on a bag full of drugs after a heist goes wrong, it turns out she is at the eye of the storm. Pixie’s apparent insouciance in the face of adversity keeps things fresh in a plot with nods to Y Tu Mamá También, while Alec Baldwin clearly relishes his cameo as the head of a gang of dodgy priests.
Friday 24 February, 9pm, Film4
***
Kill List
Ben Wheatley’s increasingly visceral second feature shifts expertly from Loachian social realism to dark crime drama to something even more sinister. Neil Maskell – the master of the dead-eyed psychopath role – plays Jay, an unemployed ex-soldier in a strained marriage to MyAnna Buring’s Shel. He is offered a job with his old comrade Gal (Wheatley regular Michael Smiley), which turns out to be as hitmen, but Jay’s poise crumbles as he discovers more about their victims. A film whose creepy music and plot turns hint at its final destination.
Friday 24 February, 12.35am, Film4
