Boxing drama The Fighter stomps all over Million Dollar Baby in its epic portrayal of Micky Ward and his rise from Massachusetts nobody to WBU champion.

Edward Norton continues his string of underwhelming films that threatens to undermine the legacy of perhaps the finest American actor of the 90s. Writer-director Tim Blake Nelson apes the Coens with this tale of quirky criminals, but can’t match the Brothers Grim for inventiveness and assurance.

An intriguing piece of sinister, twisty seaside noir – a much under-represented genre – Brighton Rock deals equally in shadows and bright skies. May or may not represent good and evil.

The pure range of emotions one experiences when watching Dawn of Evil: Rise of the Reich!
Shock, disgust, hilarity and awe all flit among the shadowy recesses of your mind in this ‘biopic’ of a young Adolf Hitler, which manages to be both stupid, and offensive.

Biutiful covers a lot of ground in its 147 minutes. It’s about spirituality, and family, and love, and poverty, and oh, too many other things to list. And the reason there’s such a plethora of subject on offer is down to Biutiful‘s central character Uxbal (Javier Bardem); a man with more layers than your average onion.

The old dog tries out some new tricks – to mixed results. It has its moments, and treats its potentially sensational subject matter with the respect that, really, it deserves, but it feels very one-note, despite Eastwood’s attempts at innovation. After this and the strangely underwhelming Invictus, let’s hope Eastwood’s creative flame hasn’t ‘died’ out just yet. Arf.

Ricardo Darín and Soledad Villamil star in a labyrinthine homicide thriller which twists, turns and generally contorts itself through the corrupt underbelly of 70s Argentine law enforcement. It doesn’t sound great, does it? Well, it bloody is great. So there.

A cute but predictable rom-com with a decent line up, How Do You Know might not set the world on fire, but it will warm the cockles of your heart and bring a smile to your face. Unless you are actually a machine, in which case this will just annoy you.

The Mechanic is a remake of the slovenly ‘72 film starring Charles Bronson as a conflicted assassin. Substitute the unflappable Bronson for a wooden Jason Statham, add a Louisiana setting and blues soundtrack, and you have a Statham vehicle whose only redeeming value is the wonderful Ben Foster.

Edward Norton and Robert De Niro are the main draw for this prison drama, which otherwise paints a confused picture of the thin line between law man and law breaker which never quite hits its mark.