Thriller & Mystery > 1951 Thriller & Mystery > H

  Beware of "Strangers on a Train"

Advantages: Fabulous story, fabulous atmosphere and fabulous acting
Disadvantages: A very few irksome things but neglible

Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train - excellent movie! I could leave it that but of course I won’t. I’d had this 2 disk special edition in my DVD collection for a while before I got around to watching it. I really should have watched it as soon as I bought it. Not that I need an excuse to watch it all over again. There is no law that says you have to wait any given period of time before you can watch a film that you enjoyed all over again! WHAT’S ...
...BACKGROUND Strangers on a Train was adapted from “Strangers on a Train” written by Patricia Highsmith (who also penned The Talented Mr Ripley) was used as the inspiration for the 80s film Throw Momma from the Train starring Billy Crystal and Danny DeVito. Not surprisingly (for me anyway) there has been a Bollywood remake of the film called Strangers. If you’ve seen Throw Momma from the Train you will know that the inspiration for the murders ...

anonymili 23.09.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: exceptional
Review of Strangers On A Train (Special Edition) (DVD)

How strange...

Advantages: Brilliant story and cinematography and creepy acting
Disadvantages: Hardly any

...make you very wary of strangers from now on! The tension is fantastic right the way through, with some quite unsettling scenes, and lots of examples of Hitchcock's revolutionary visual style. I would definitely recommend it! Strangers on a Train is available online from www.dvd.co.uk for £5.99 for the single disc edition, or £7.99 from www.play.com for the special 2 disc edition. These are both good ...

l-m-n-o-p 29.10.2005 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Strangers On A Train (DVD)

Action-packed with some witty dialogue but still flawed somehow

Advantages: Quite thrilling when it gathers pace, seemed an authentic depiction of London, some humour
Disadvantages: Something about Downey Jnrs depiction of Holmes didnt work somehow, not for all ages/the squeamish

...Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novels, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson start out by catching a serial killer who dabbles in the the supernatural, an evil man called Lord Blackwood who is sentenced to death, indeed Watson confirms he's dead after he's hung. Things take a distinctly sinister turn, however, when they discover than Blackwood has apparently risen from the dead and Holmes recalls what he told him before he was hung, which indicated that more ...
...actor (Robert Downey Jnr.) played Sherlock Holmes, while an English actor (Jude Law), played his right hand man, Dr. Watson. Now of course I knew that before I went to see the movie, infact I quite like Robert Downey Jnr. as an actor and I have enjoyed some of his other movies and the fact that he plays the main character was one of the main reasons I wanted to see it in the cinema but there was something about him playing this role that I just didn't ...

IzzyS 27.12.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Sherlock Holmes

What goes around comes around..

Advantages: Enigmatic
Disadvantages: Perhaps too long

...I wouldn’t say this was in that impact category but certainly a quality piece of film. The drama begins with the return of thirty-something award winning war photographer Paul Harris (Mathew McFadden) to the small rural town of Steimer where he grew up, his first visit for 17 years. The night bag over the shoulder arrival is for dad’s funeral, mum long returned to the Earth, Paul’s relationship with big brother Andrew (Colin May) still not good after ...
...As per normal in these movies Paul has awakened ghosts from his and others past on his return, none more so than a long lost relationship with Penny (Miranda Otto), the reason, we discover later, he skipped town. Deciding to stick around and sort out the family estate, his brother begrudging Paul’s promised third of the Will & Testament, the rest going to an unnamed charity, things take an unexpected turn in his closed world with the arrival of a ...

thedevilinme 22.12.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of In My Father's Den (DVD)

About as fun as being stuck in the Channel Tunel

Advantages: Acting
Disadvantages: Yawnnnnnnn

The dust-cover proudly states that this is the best film of the new millennium! They obviously haven’t seen Brazilian Girls Go Wild In Cancun then. I took both films up on their boasts and I can confirm there was only one winner—and I didn’t need the subtitles. Talk about over rated. I had heard good things about Hidden; it had won the Palm De Or` in Cannes no less. But it’s French and so that means its going to be very talky and actor centered, ...
...the limited and predictable script. For a movie pushed as a mysterious thriller the only mystery here is how it won anything, dribbling out to a very disappointing finish. One broadsheet even voted this film of the decade?? The movie opens with a single static shot of the front of one of those comfy urban secluded houses in a nice middle class Paris superb. From across the street we observe the house panacea and everyday movements in the street ...

thedevilinme 20.12.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Hidden (DVD)