Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 4/6/2015)

Still basking in the critical glory of his debut novel, Join the Street Parade, rising New York literary star Jason Schwartzman has been assured by editor Daniel London that he will go stratospheric when his sophomore effort, Obidant, hits the shelves. However, from the moment he berates ex-lover Samantha Jacober for daring to be late for a meeting, it is clear that Schwartzman is an insufferable narcissist who takes obnoxious hubris to a new level. Indeed, he is so certain that he is about to be proclaimed a genius that he cancels a promotional tour at the eleventh hour, brushes aside the adulation of would-be groupie Dree Hemingway and retreats to the apartment he shares with photographer girlfriend Elisabeth Moss to await the cascade of plaudits.

However, as narrator Eric Bogosian reveals, the rave reviews simply never materialise. London cowers as he breaks the news that the New York Times is lukewarm at best. But Schwartzman dismisses the ignorance of the critic and accepts an assignment to profile fellow scribe, Keith Poulson, whose book The Exploding Head Trick has been warmly received. Yet, instead of fawning over Poulson, Schwartzman calls him out for a fight and the resulting fracas causes Poulson to take his own life when it becomes public knowledge.

Dismayed only that he didn't get the last interview with a dead celebrity, Schwartzman refocuses on himself. Brushing off Moss's accusation that he is no fun any more, he accepts an invitation to stay with his fallen idol, Jonathan Pryce, who is every bit as conceited and detached from reality. He invites Schwartzman to spend some time at his country home to and take advantage of the peace and quiet to write. However, Pryce (whose reputation has dipped since he tried to cap the landmark novel Madness and Women with A Woman's Perspective) is every bit as demanding of attention as his guest, especially when he has the wind taken out of his sails by adult daughter, Krysten Ritter, after she interrupts his sordid attempts to seduce a gullible middle-aged woman.

While Schwartzman finds himself in the middle of a domestic dispute, Moss tries to move on with her life. She tells sister Jess Weixler to sort herself out, gets a cat and sees her career prospects start to improve. Yet, for some reason, she can't get over a man who barely acknowledges her existence, let alone her achievements. Meanwhile, things go from bad to worse for her estranged beau, as Pryce finds him a position teaching creative writing at a liberal arts college and he rapidly alienate all of his students and his colleagues. French tutor Josephine de la Baume agrees to a date, but their tryst is not a success and Schwartzman returns to Brooklyn to discover that Moss has thrown him out of their apartment and that his novel has bombed so badly that he is as hopeless as he is homeless.

Philip Lewis Friedman is Schwartzman's best role since Max Fischer in Wes Anderson's Rushmore (2008). Indeed, they have much in common and Perry often seems to exploit the similarity, as much as he does the fact that Pryce's character, Ike Zimmerman, has a name that resembles Philip Roth's alter ego in The Ghost Writer, Nathan Zuckerman. References to Roth abound, although Perry has revealed that he borrowed the idea to rack focus away from Schwartmen and on to Moss and Pryce from William Gaddis's first novel, The Recognitions. Having previously modelled Impolex on Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, it is perhaps not surprising that Perry sprinkles his myriad cinematic homages with the odd literary cue. But, given the current state of print publishing, there is something affectionate and romantic about the reverence shown to books here, even by characters as reprehensible as these.

Allowing glimpses of the fragile vulnerability beneath their pomposity, Schwartzman and Pryce are magnificent. But there isn't a false performance from the splendid ensemble, who are forever being eavesdropped or spied upon by Sean Price Williams's handheld and restlessly intrusive Super 16mm camera. Moss does particularly well with an underwritten character whose loyal yearning for a pretentious braggart provides the screenplay's biggest stretch. Even the unseen Eric Bogosian comes close to matching Alex Baldwin's superb voiceover in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tennenbaums (2001). Perry indulges himself with the occasional quip that sounds like something someone would say in a Woody Allen satire on hipsterdom, while other scenes ramble in the manner of a John Cassavetes improvisation. But, while he periodically risks sounding as smug as his gruesome twosome, Perry lets them carry the can while he picks up the accolades.

If this feels like a companion piece to Joel and Ethan Coen's Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Andrew Bujalski's Results rather resembles a sitcom pilot. It establishes the backstory and introduces the key characters, while setting up some of the dynamics and tensions that are going to propel the plot. But then it fades out, leaving the impression that the real story has yet to start. Bujalski has never been one to concoct convoluted narratives around his usually socially awkward and emotionally stunted protagonists. But the action here is so low key that it is overwhelmed by the intensity of the performances of Bujalski's first name cast. The dialogue is so prosaic it needs to be mumbled and almost thrown away, but it is enunciated with a clarity and passion that merely exposes its inconsequentiality.

Arriving in Austin, Texas to claim an inheritance from the mother he barely knew, New York shlubb Kevin Corrigan mopes around a vast mansion and wonders what to do now his wife has demanded a divorce. Feeling he would be a better man if he could take a punch, he wanders into the Power 4 Life gym and allows owner Guy Pearce to sign him up for a series of home fitness sessions. He is somewhat intimidated when the trainer turns out to be the zealously super-fit Cobie Smulders, who is not averse to running after cars to scold clients for eating muffins or falling behind on their payments. She talks him through his dietary issues and devises a few gentle exercises to get him going. But Corrigan is less interested in improving his own technique than in ogling Smulders and he spends the long, lonely hours of darkness watching an online video of her performing squats on a giant TV screen.

When not sharing his bed with a giant dog, Pearce also wiles away the night fixating on a screen, as he watches Russian bodybuilder Anthony Michael Hall showing off the kettle bell programme that has made him a millionaire. Pearce has great ambitions to expand his business and estate agent Constance Zimmer shows him some cavernous premises that encourage him to consult Corrigan about the project. He puts Pearce in touch with lawyer Giovanni Ribisi and he promises to get him a sweet deal. But they fall out when Corrigan allows his crush on Smulders to get out of control and he hires an easy listening trio to serenade them during a candlelit dinner at his mansion and she storms out in fury.

Pearce wants to switch trainers. But Smulders insists she is a professional and can rise above the problem. However, she agrees to smoke a joint with Corrigan on her next visit and they wind up in bed. Confused, she steers clear of them both, as she tries to clear her head. But she can't resist following Pearce when he is invited to meet Hall and his trophy wife Brooklyn Decker and barges in during supper to embarrass him with her frank opinions. Yet, even though he is concerned about the age difference between them and knows she has a tendency to fly off the handle, Pearce no option but to run after her when they pass each other while out jogging and the picture ends on a note of suspended optimism that just about extends to Corrigan, as he ponders what on earth he is going to do with his wealth and leisure.

Easily the most conventional film that Bujalski has made to date, this is less a satire on the keep fit industry than a melancholic treatise on loneliness and the breakdown of communication between people who are supposed to care for each other. The opening scene has Corrigan trying to call to his wife from her barred window and his inability to express himself causes him to make the grandiloquent romantic gestures that initially alienate Smulders. Pearce also finds it difficult to speak to the woman he loves and similarly becomes tongue-tied when he meets his hero. Yet he can chat to Zimmer with no difficulty, as he outlines his plans for the gym.

Yet, while the character aspects fascinate and bring the best out of Pearce, Smulders and Corrigan, too many plot strands fail to come together. The encounters with Ribisi and Hall fall particularly flat, while Corrigan is allowed to drift into the margins. Matthias Grunsky's photography and Justin Rice's score are serviceable, but reinforce how stylistically pedestrian this is. No one was expecting Bujalski to repeat the left-field quirkiness of Computer Chess, but this tentative step towards the cinematic centre ground feels disappointingly retrogressive.

Rumours are that Queen and Country will be 82 year-old John Boorman's final feature. In some ways, it's apt to end with the moment that he (or, at lease, his alter ego) becomes a film-maker. But this long-delayed sequel to Hope and Glory (1987) will disappoint those who revelled in this idealised memoir of London life during the Blitz. Moreover, it will seem a rather tame way for one of British cinema's few genuine iconoclasts to bow out after such bold early ventures as Catch Us If You Can (1965), Point Blank (1967), Hell in the Pacific (1968), Leo the Last (1970) and Deliverance (1972).

First seen in flashback as a nine year-old thanking Hitler for bombing his school, Bill Rohan (Callum Turner) has reached the age of 18 by 1952. He still lives beside the Thames at Twickenham with his mother Grace (Sinead Cusack), father Clive (David Hayman) and grandfather George (John Standing), and delights in the fact that crews from the nearby Shepperton Studios frequently use the area for location shooting. However, just as he is planning his future, Bill is called up for National Service and finds himself sharing a barrack with wideboy Percy Hapgood (Caleb Landry Jones) and Redmond (Pat Shortt), a skiver who likes nothing more than winding up Sergeant Major Bradley (David Thewlis) and Major Cross (Richard E. Grant).

Despite the fact that Britain is involved in the Korean War, Bill and Percy are spared an overseas posting and wind up teaching typing to the recruits destined to be shipped to Asia. Having mugged up on the conflict, Bill discovers his sympathies lie with the Communist forces to the north and, when he shares his misgivings with his class and one conscript refuses to fight, he is charged with `seducing a soldier from the course of his duty'. By contrast, Percy opts to flout authority by stealing a prized antique clock from the officers' mess and mailing it off the camp before anyone can find the culprit.

Percy also fancies himself as a ladies' man when the rookies are allowed to explore the local town. However, nurses Sophie (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) and Peggy (Miriam Rizea) are resistant to his charms, with the former quickly developing a crush on the reserved Bill. But he has lost his heart to a college student (Tamsin Egerton), who makes it clear that she isn't interested in romance by not revealing her real name. Bill calls her Ophelia and is amazed to see her in a prominent place during the Coronation of Elizabeth II, which he watches with Percy and his family on a television set purchased especially for the occasion.

Adding to the excitement of this furlough is the return from Canada of Bill's older sister, Dawn (Vanessa Kirby), who had been swept off her feet by a Quebecois soldier at the end of the war. However, she has now landed back in Blighty with her marriage in tatters and two kids in tow. Sensing her vulnerability, Percy makes a play for her and is pleased to find that his advances are not entirely unwelcome. But, with Grace and Clive also spatting on a regular basis, the old house no longer seems the sanctuary it had once been and, on being demobbed, Bill takes his first tentative steps to realising his ambition to make movies.

Forced for budgetary reasons to shoot much of the action in Romania, Boorman turns the modest production values to his advantage in order to convey the bleakness of the period of postwar austerity that saw rationing remain in place until 1954. Designer Anthony Pratt and costumier Maeve Patterson deserve particular credit for recreating the look and feel of the period, while cinematographer Seamus Deasy laudably avoids casting too nostalgic a glow over the visuals. Stephen McKeon's score also fits the bill nicely. But Boorman's script is little more than an accumulation of vignettes, with the subplot involving the enigmatic Ophelia failing to ignite, while many of the comic escapades feeling like discards from Norman Hudis's sharp screenplay for Gerald Thomas's Carry On Sergeant (1958).

The performance are also frustratingly scattershot, with Caleb Landry Jones and Richard E. Grant contributing pantomimic turns alongside the more astutely caricatured David Thewlis and Pat Shortt, as the martinet RSM and anarchic rebel. Moreover, newcomer Callum Turner struggles to convince that he is an older version of the exuberant kid played by Sebastian Rice-Edwards in Hope and Glory, while his lack of chemistry with either Aimee-Ffion Edwards or the miscast Tamsin Egerton deprives the picture of some much-needed romantic heart. Vanessa Kirby adds a little spark in the latter stages, as Boorman shrewdly dissects the middle-class mindset, as the nation becomes used to the fact that its imperial heyday is over and that they would have to wait a little while longer for the love, laughter and peace promised in Vera Lynn's wartime anthem, `(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover'.

At the opposite end of her screen career, playwright Debbie Tucker Green proves herself to be an elusive storyteller with Second Coming. Having already won a BAFTA for her 2012 teleplay, Random, Tucker Green has made an impressive transition from the stage. But, while this teasingly non-religious biblical allegory has its moments of charm and drama, it often feels capriciously elliptical and struggles to convince in its latter stages. Played with laudable intensity, this presents an intriguing insight into the workings of an ordinary black British family. But, while it eschews the clichés of the ghetto genre, it lacks the potency promised by its audacious premise.

Thirtysomething Nadine Marshall works at a benefits office. Following a series of miscarriages, she was informed after giving birth to her 11 year-old son, Kai Francis Lewis, that she would never conceive again. So, she is deeply concerned when she starts to experience the symptoms of pregnancy, even though she hasn't been intimate with husband Idris Elba for several months. Feeling unable to confide in mother Llewella Gideon and aware that sister Seroca Davis sneers at her for being a government lackey, Marshall confides in best friend Sharlene Whyte and wonders whether she should have an abortion. But she loves being a mother and is as curious and excited by this seemingly miraculous development as she is confused and scared by the fact she starts having nosebleeds and hallucinates that water is pouring through the walls and ceiling when she is alone in the bathroom.

Elba works as a maintenance man on the railways and is hardly ever home because of all the overtime he claims. He is a decent father and Tucker Green shows us snippets of domestic contentment, as the family watch videos together, prepare meals and visit relatives. Yet, there is an atmosphere between Elba and Marshall and Francis Lewis regards them at such moments as carefully as he watches birds in the nearby park. But, while he willingly takes care of an injured blackbird, Elba is far less accepting when Marshall breaks the news about her condition and their son views their heated argument from a discreet distance with a mounting sense of dread.

The boy's fears prove well founded when his mother attempts a drastic course of action. But, even though Tucker Green uses captions to count down the weeks to the possible birth, she fails to generate sufficient suspense or affection for the characters to make this sincere study of the pressures of motherhood as compelling as it might have been. She should be commended for spinning out the crux of the matter and for presenting several key developments from a child's eye view. But a good deal of the symbolism is as heavy handed as Luke Sutherland's ominous score and the blues and greys that cinematographer Ula Pontikos employs to convey the miserable London weather.

Marshall and Elba respond admirably to the challenges of playing characters whose complexities are often internalised. Elba seems to be a committed family man. But hints are dropped that he might not be as reliable as he likes to appear and these suspicions help explain why Marshall would be so reluctant to tell her husband the truth from the outset. However, her own behaviour often borders on the peculiar and Tucker Green allows the viewer to speculate about whether the entire episode might be taking place solely in Marshall's overwrought imagination. But this mix of social realism and psychological thriller never quite melds and this exposes the conspicuous calculation of the cryptically fractured structure.

South African screenwriters Terence Hammond and Hofmeyr Scholtz prove much more blatantly melodramatic in tying up the loose ends in Ian Gabriel's Four Corners. Continuing the proud tradition of gang-related township pictures that was established by the likes of Oliver Schmitz's Mapantsula (1987) and Gavin Hood's Oscar-winning Tsotsi (2005), this is the first feature to employ the secret Sabela code used by the Numbers Gangs that dominate the Cape Flats area to the south-east of central Cape Town. But, while Gabriel captures the ambience of this poverty-stricken enclave, he seems too much in thrall to Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund's City of God (2002) in his bid to give the action a pugnacity to match its social commitment.

As hell breaks loose in the cafeteria of Pollsmoor maximum security prison, Brendon Daniels sits alone and contemplates his imminent release. As one of the leaders of the infamous 28 Gang, he has served a 13-year stretch and is focused solely on returning to Cape Flats and reclaiming the house that was stolen by members of the rival 26 crew who murdered his father. Daniels also has a son somewhere in the shantytown, but settling a blood feud takes precedence over everything in a turf war that has been seething for almost a century.

Once ensconced in the shack in which he had been raised, Daniels uses the steam iron to burn off his 28er tattoo and vows to keep his head down and make something of what remains of his life. However, despite his declaration of neutrality, the 26 mob (who are nicknamed `The Americans') have no intention of taking the reversal lying down and leader Irshaad Ally plots his next move while seeking to recruit 13 year-old orphan Jezzriel Skei as one of his street boys. While others eagerly run errands and commit minor acts of crime, Skei devotes himself to chess and hopes that his talent will enable him to escape the township. But his escape route seems blocked when Ally traps him by betting heavily on a match that Skei unexpectedly loses.

As the Numbers mobs come under increasing pressure from such gun-wielding and crack-peddling new outfits as Nice Time, The Mongrels and Dixie Boy, police captain Abduragman Adams turns his attention to a spate of killings that are linked by the fact that the victims are all young boys and that the perpetrator keeps leaving clues relating to the New Testament. Daniels is concerned that his own child could be in danger. But he is distracted in his search by the arrival from London of old flame Lindiwe Matshikiza, who has qualified as a doctor while Daniels was behind bars and who has only returned to her detested home to settle her late father's affairs.

Abetted by Markus Wormstrom's jumping blend of electronica and hip-hop, cinematographer Vicci Turpin does a magnificent job of capturing the desolate milieu that makes the ongoing gang war seem all the more tragically pointless. But Gabriel does too little with the intrusive immediacy of her widescreen visuals, as he dwells on clumsy chess-related symbolism while flitting between unpersuasive plotlines that seem to enervate rather than energise each other. Daniels and Skei work hard to hold the picture together. But their naturalism is often undermined by the hollow ring of the dialogue and the lack of restraint shown by some of the supporting players. Gabriel also struggles to integrate the murder mystery and the tentative romance (whose secret is all too easy to guess) and resorts too easily to slow motion and other optical effects that give the violence in set-pieces like the climactic shootout a designer slickness that weakens the worthwhile effort to deglamorize gang culture.

Sion Sono takes us into a very different gangland in Tokyo Tribe, a rap musical that never comes close to living up to its promise. Over the years, Sono has delighted in provoking audiences by playing fast and loose with generic convention and this adaptation of a long-running manga series by Santa Inoue is one of his most stylistically flamboyant offerings. But, for all the knowing references to Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Walter Hill's The Warriors (1979), this never quite works as a bruising action thriller or as a song-and-dance-filled extravaganza.

In a futuristic Tokyo beset by earthquakes and unrestricted gang warfare, Riki Takeuchi rules over the northern and eastern districts of the city. Cops and rival gangs know to steer clear of Bukuro, if only because those the cannibalistic Takeuchi doesn't slaughter in fury he captures for his cooking pot. However, his son, Yosuke Kubozuka, is every bit as depraved and despicable and completing this vile triumvirate is Ryohei Suzuki, the leader of the Wu-Ronz clan that has nailed its colours to Takeuchi's mast.

Incurring the wrath of the Bukuro brigade is Young Dais, a member of the Musashino-Saru tribe that preaches peace and love. Takeuchi is not entirely godless, however, as he places his trust in Denden, the high priest of the local temple, and, when his daughter disappears because she disapproves of his sacrificial ceremonies, Takeuchi vows to return her. What he doesn't know, however, is that he has accidentally abducted Nana Seino and her breakdancing friend Kikoto Sakaguchi while trawling for likely victims to turn into prostitutes or his evening meal. But they refuse to accept their fate meekly.

Meanwhile, Musashino-Saru leader Ryuta Sato is killed by Suzuki and the tribe becomes divided between those who wish to turn the other cheek and those who crave revenge. Dais is conflicted, as he once counted Suzuki among his closest friends. But, now, he finds himself being lured into Sagu Town to rescue his kidnapped sidekick Takuya Ishida. His incursion into enemy territory, however, coincides with the rise of the Waru paramilitary unit and Dais implores the other gangs to set aside their rivalries to unite against a common foe.

Seino and Sakaguchi rally to Dais's cause, but Takeuchi and Kubozuka refuse to compromise and are killed in the ensuing conquest of the Waru. Suzuki survives, however, and reveals that he loathes Dais because he once caught sight of his penis in the sauna and was appalled to discover that it was much bigger than his own. They fight and Dais emerges victorious. Moreover, he also wins the heart of Seino and they follow their embrace by uniting the disparate clans under the single banner of the `Tokyo Tribe'.

It's not unusual for Japanese provocateurs to have their actors burst into song, after all Takashi Miike took everyone by surprise alternating ditties and butchery in The Happiness of the Katakuris (2002). But Sono takes things further by having the cast rap large swathes of dialogue and bust the odd move in order to reinforce the downtown tone and put a little edge on what often runs the risk of being a ridiculously camp exercise. The majority rise to the challenge, with Dais demonstrating his hip-hop credentials in handling the gangsta rhymes composed by members of the BCDMG troupe. On-screen narrator Shota Sometani is less comfortable, however, and rather mumbles his lines. But Charles Gray was hardly Enrico Caruso in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).

Seino and Sakaguchi are particularly gymnastic as they unleash their fury, while Takeuchi, Kubozuka and Suzuki throw themselves into their cartoonish villainy with admirable brio. Production designer Yuji Hayashida, costumier Chieko Matsumoto and cinematographer Daisuke Sôma also merit mention for their colourfully eccentric contributions, along with editor Jun'ichi Itô, who manages to cut to the musical and the dramatic beats without making the edits seem to jerky or gimmicky. Sono keeps threatening to go over the top, as he throws in everything from pinku-eiga nudity to chop socky and heroic bloodshed. But, even though his approach is deeply ironic and there are moments of genuine inspiration, the cumulative effect is often more overwhelming than entertaining.

The focus shifts on to the gangbusters in Cédric Jimenez's fact-based thriller, The Connection. Despite being released as La French on the domestic market, this has been retitled in English to evoke memories of William Friedkin's Oscar-winning powerhouse, The French Connection (1971) and John Frankenheimer's pugnacious, but inferior sequel, French Connection II (1975). However, it has much more in common with the gang sagas and police procedurals produced around this period by the likes of Henri Verneuil, Georges Lautner and Jacques Deray. Indeed, it even bears comparison to the Mafia movies of such Italian directors as Fernando Di Leo. But, for all its slickness, it lacks the scope and scale of Jean-François Richet's Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Mesrine: Public Enemy Number 1 (both 2008) and Oliver Assayas's Carlos (2010).

Pained by the death of addict Lily Mariani (Pauline Burlet), Judge Pierre Michel (Jean Dujardin) decides to leave the juvenile court in Metz to accept a posting with the organised crime division in Marseilles. In 1975, this port in southern France is at the apex of a triangle that sees Turkish opium being smuggled to secret laboratories where it is transformed into heroin for shipment to the United States. A natural born gambler, Michel is determined to break this so-called `French connection', in spite of the fact that lynchpins like Neapolitan Gaëtan `Tany' Zampa (Gilles Lellouche) have corrupted local cops and prominent figures in the municipal government.

A montage shows the extent to which Zampa's tentacles reach out across the city, with executions and drive-by shootings taking place in full public gaze on a regular basis. Yet, while Michel's wife, Jacqueline (Céline Sallette), is terrified that the investigation will endanger their two daughters, Zampa leads a perfectly normal home life with spouse Christiane (Mélanie Doutey), as he swims in his pool, works out on an exercise bike and reads bedtime stories to their son. Moreover, he tries to convey the impression he is a businessman by opening the Krypton Club, which he operates at a loss as a front for his more nefarious dealings.

Although he is ably aided by José Alvarez (Guillaume Gouix), Michel earns the respect of his new colleagues by bending the rules to implement a campaign of covert surveillance, illegal wiretaps and unwarranted arrests. However, he is frustrated by the fact that cops like Ange Mariette (Gérard Meylan) leak details of the case to his paymaster and suspects that mayor Gaston Defferre (Féodor Atkine) is also surrounded by spies and snitches. He also despises dabblers in the drug scene like Le Banquier (Bruno Todeschini) and wishes that rival druglords like Thomas `Crazy Horse' Calazzi (Benoît Magimel) would challenge Zampa's hegemony and disrupt his operation. When internecine fighting does break out, therefore, Michel sits back and allows his adversaries do his work for him. However, when Zampa loses several loyal lieutenants in the turf war, he complains to Defferre for allowing Michel to target him and he is swiftly removed from office.

Six years later, Defferre has been installed as the new minister of the interior in François Mitterand's socialist regime and Michel asks to be reinstated, as US contact John Cusack (Dominic Gould) has information that can bring Zampa down once and for all. Back in Marseilles, Michel sanctions a raid on one of Zampa's laboratories and apprehends Marco Da Costa (Cyril Lecomte), a leading confidante who seems willing to sing in return for a lighter sentence. Knowing he is unable to reach Da Costa in custody, Zampa allows himself to be tailed by Michel and the pair come face to face on a headland looking out across the bay. Their exchange is curt (and entirely fictional), but respectful. But Zampa still orders a hit against Michel, only to be arrested himself shortly afterwards. He commits suicide in prison and Defferre makes a speech praising Michel for his courage in risking his own life to halt a heinous trade.

Co-scripted by Jimenez and Audrey Diwan, this is a film that goes through the classic policier motions as though ticking boxes on a crib sheet. Production designer Jean-Philippe Moreaux should be commended for getting the cars and décor so right, while Carine Sarfati's costumes are as spot on as the sideburns created by Virginie Berland. Laurent Tangy's camerawork is similarly slick and his images are cut to the bone by Sophie Reine to the pounding accompaniment of a Guillaume Roussel score that is complemented by countless period pop hits.

The performances are just as polished, with Jean Dujardin seeming positively Delonesque as he hurtles around the waterfront at the wheel of his flashy motor and broods pensively while pondering the marital consequences of sacrificing himself for the greater good. Gilles Lellouche makes a snarlingly good adversary, although their Pacino-De Niro à la Heat (1995) moment is a bit of a damp squib. But there are several similar longueurs along the way, as Jimenez (making his first solo feature after co-directing 2011s Aux yeux de tous with Arnaud Duprey) seeks to demonstrate that he can do a syndicate picture in the grand Michael Mann manner. That said, there are a number of nods towards Quentin Tarantino (when he might have been better advised to pay his dues to Martin Scorsese) and this stylistic and tonal restlessness proves something of a distraction, while also depriving the action of some much-needed psychological depth.

The investigation is much more leisurely and anything but expert in Diao Yinan's Black Coal, Thin Ice, an overdue follow-up to the equally minimalist and mannered Uniform (2003) and Night Train (2007). The action is sometimes a touch too capriciously confusing, while the episodic structure prevents the Diao from sustaining either momentum or suspense. But, by borrowing liberally from a range of film noir classics, he gives this teasingly gruesome psychodrama a cutting chill to match the evocative snowscapes captured in the depths of a northern Chinese winter by cinematographer Dong Jinsong.

When body parts are found in 1999 on a coal mine conveyor belt in the province of Heilongjiang, detective Liao Fan is assigned the case and quickly ascertains that victim Wang Xuebing was cut into pieces and dispatched by delivery lorries to sites within a 100km radius of his home. Widow Gwei Lun-mei works for dry cleaner Wang Jingchun and betrays little emotion on hearing the news of her husband's demise. But, as he has just been through a painful divorce with Ni Jingyang, Liao allows himself to become intrigued by her and keeps finding excuses to visit the little corner shop in a quiet part of town.

Eventually, Liao narrows the suspect list down to two brothers, who work at the pit and have access to the trucks. However, when he tries to ambush them at a barber's shop, there is a shootout that culminates in the deaths of two cops, as well as the siblings, while Liao himself is badly wounded.

Five years later, Liao is employed as a security guard in a local factory. He drinks heavily and is feeling low after the theft of his moped when he bumps into old cop pal Yu Ailei. Rousing himself from his lethargy, Liao is intrigued to learn that two more butchered corpses have turned up and that the clues link back to Gwei, who had been dating the victims before they disappeared. Each man was found wearing ice skates and Liao is unable to resist snooping round the Rong Rong laundry. He rescues Gwei when Wang makes a lustful lunge at her and tends to the burn she receives while trying to fend off her boss with a hot iron.

Ignoring Yu's warning not to get himself involved with a femme fatale, Liao persuades Gwei to go skating at an outdoor rink. He falls over as they glide to `The Blue Danube' blaring out on the tannoy, but he follows Gwei when she slips off down an icy path by herself and they kiss when Liao pulls her to the ground. Yu tries to follow, but cannot make out what is happening in the darkness before all three are admonished over the loudspeaker by the owner for leaving the rink in hired skates.

Gwei and Liao return home in a taxi and seem oblivious to the fact they are being followed by a white van. Yu follows at a discrete distance and, when Liao and Gwei go to the Red Star Theatre to watch a 3-D film entitled Lucky 13 in a kung-fu festival, he trails the driver into a narrow alleyway. He orders the man to stop and is about to handcuff him, when he slashes the cop across the face with a razor-sharp skate and proceeds to stab him mercilessly with the glistening blade.

Distraught at losing a friend, Liao finds a number on a pad in Yu's car and boards a bus with the same registration. It's crowded and he is pushing along the standing area when he sees someone with skates over their shoulder. Liao gets off at the stranger' stop and they eat in the same café. When the skater goes to a dancing club, Liao tags along and waltzes distractedly with a lonely woman before following his quarry through a maze of corridors. However, he opts not to pursue him up a staircase and decides to bide his time.

Some time later, Liao sees the suspect making ice delivery with his van and tails him to a remote spot. The perp carries something shrouded in a sheet on to a railway bridge and Liao watches dispassionately as he tosses Yu's severed limbs into a coal truck passing below. Realising the identity of the killer, Liao returns to the ice rink and has the owner page Wang Xuebing. However, he skates off too quickly for Liao to catch him and he contents himself with paying Gwei a visit to ask what she knows about her undead spouse. She reveals that Wang killed a man during a bungled robbery and decided to fake his own death. However, he was unable to stay away from her and started murdering any man who showed an interest in her.

As she feels trapped, Gwei agrees to betray Wang and he is gunned down in an ambush that also claims the life of a cop. Liao is hurt when Gwei ignores him at the funeral home when she comes to claims her husband's ashes and he confronts her on the railway bridge near her home. He asks if she kept the ashes she had claimed were Wang back in 1999 and she insists she threw them in the river. But Liao recalls Yu saying that she had buried them under a tree outside the Rong Rong and he wonders whether Gwei is as innocent as she claims.

His focus falls on a leather coat that had proved key to the case five years earlier and tracks it down to internet café owner, Chang Kaining. He directs Liao to the Daylight Fireworks Club, where the female owner recognises the coat and says her husband was wearing it when he abandoned her for his mistress. She climbs into a bathtub fully clothed and cackles as she avers she would recognise the woman anywhere. Convinced he is on the right lines, Liao arranges to meet Gwei at an amusement park. They ride the Ferris wheel and he notes her reaction when she sees the Daylight's neon sign glowing in the darkness. Liao tells Gwei to confide in him and they clumsily make love before going for soup and dumplings at a nearby café.

She promises to see him later, as she has to open the laundry. But, much as he is smitten, Liao has to do his duty as a former policeman. That night, therefore, he shows Gwei the incriminating jacket and she confesses that she killed its owner after he became a nuisance. She also reveals that Wang tried to cover up for her and then became jealous when she started seeing other men following his `death'. Liao gets out of the car and trudges through the snow, as Gwei is driven away. He goes to the dancing club and throws himself into some energetic gyrations in a bid to work through his frustration and regret.

A few days later, Gwei is taken under police guard to the tenement where she used to live. A couple expecting a baby let them in and watch as Gwei describes how she killed the coat owner with a knife in the bedroom. She is made to point to different parts of the room for video evidence. But, as she leaves, fireworks rain down from an upper room of a building opposite and she half smiles as she is led away. The fire brigade arrives and, although the camera remains a distant observer, it seems clear that the display was Liao's way of showing Gwei that he cared while bidding her farewell.

Stuffed with auteurist flourishes and eccentric digressions (such as the visit to a landlady troubled by a horse roaming the corridors of her property), this is a disarming thriller that keeps threatening to grip only to slacken off or become unnecessarily convoluted. The sequences at the dance club (the second of which appears to culminate in a homage to Claire Denis's Beau Travail, 1999) are a case in point, although the entire strand with the leather coat is rather awkwardly handled, considering its significance to the plot. However, there is something satisfyingly labyrinthine about proceedings that are allowed to develop in their own good time.

The performances of Liao Fan and Taiwanese star Gwei Lunmei are excellent, with his shabby shamus and her enigmatic black widow being solidly supported by Yu Ailei as the world-weary inspector and Wang Jingchun as the lecherous laundry owner, whose devotion to Gwei sees him bring her a scarf as she is about to be driven off to jail. But the characterisation is rather sketchy and Diao often seems more intent on alluding to Hollywood gems and curios than he does on generating tension. However, the vein of bleak humour is subtly sustained, while the use of the industrial landscape and the rundown backstreets is exemplary. Hard-boiled aficionados will be hooked, as will those seeking a little political allegory about the price China has paid for its economic advancement. But this would always occupy the lower half of a double bill with Jia Zhang-ke's A Touch of Sin (2013).

Finally, this week, there's an all-too-rare opportunity to enjoy Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy on the big screen with a a double bill of James Parrott's 1932 short, County Hospital, and William A. Seiter's sublime feature, Sons of the Desert (1933). It seems a lifetime ago that this genial duo was a fixture of holiday television schedules. Now, there is a genuine danger that the only silent clowns to make an entirely successful transition to sound may slip into obscurity. So let's hope that this inspired reissue sparks a revival and prompts the BBC or Channel 4 to make Laurel and Hardy a permanent part of the small-screen landscape once more.

Scripted by the peerless HM Walker and with its comic business being crafted by Ulverston's favourite son, County Hospital opens with Mr Laurel paying Mr Hardy a visit the day after clearly being responsible for breaking his leg. Graciously shrugging that he has nothing better to do, Stan offers Ollie a bag containing hard-boiled eggs and nuts and seems put out that his friend is not more grateful for his gift. Sighing wearily, Ollie asks why Stan didn't bring him some candy and he rolls his eyes when he is informed that not only does it cost too much, but also that Stan is still miffed because he wasn't reimbursed for the last box he bought him.

As Stan peels an eggs, he knocks over a jug of water and receives a clunk over the head with a bedpan. However, when he tries to crack a nut with the weight keeping Ollie's leg raised, he accidentally suspends him in mid-air and then pitches Dr Billy Gilbert out of an open window when he tries to snatch back the weight while on a routine visit to his patient. Relieved at surviving his high-rise peril, Gilbert orders Ollie to leave immediately and he curses Stan for depriving him of some much-needed peace and quiet.

While Ollie gets dressed, Stan cuts down his right trouser leg to get it over his plaster cast. However, he has accidentally taken the scissors to a suit belonging to Ollie's toff roommate, William Austin, who is not best pleased. But, to make matters worse, Stan also sits down on a syringe full of sedative left on a chair by nurse May Wallace during the kerfuffle with the weight. Consequently, he falls asleep at the wheel as he drives Ollie home. But, while they survive numerous near-misses as the helpless Hardy tries to regain control of the Model T Ford, they end up being squashed between two streetcars that bends the chassis at a 90° angle that means the vehicle can only go round in circles.

Only Laurel and Hardy could find comedy in the consumption of an egg. But the combination of Ollie's exasperated expression and Stan's clueless insouciance as he reaches into his inside jacket pocket for a salt cellar is inexplicably priceless. They are let down slightly by the poor back projection in the harum scarum sequence. But producer Hal Roach was never one to dwell on such minor imperfections, as he knew that the vast majority of the audience would be too helpless with laughter to notice.

One of the recurring complaints about Laurel and Hardy is that their features are never as consistently amusing as their two-reelers. Frustrated by the narrative variability of Parrott's Pardon Us (1931) and George Marshall and Raymond McCarey's Pack Up Your Troubles (1932), Stan Laurel was determined to eschew slapstick set-pieces in order to produce a feature in which the humour was not only derived from situation and character, but which was also fully integrated into the storyline. Consequently, he hired new writing partners for Sons of the Desert, a variation on Leo McCareys 1928 silent two-reeler, We Faw Down, which had supposedly been inspired by a piece of gossip that Oliver Hardy had heard from his laundress.

Frank Craven wrote the treatment while the duo was completing Lloyd French's Busy Bodies (1933) and Stan then worked with Frank Terry on the dialogue and ex-comic Glenn Tryon on additional material, while Byron Morgan was polishing the continuity. But even more significant than the meticulous plotting was the contribution of director William A. Seiter, whose background lay in drama and light romance rather than clowning, and his sure sense of pace and flow ensured the kind of seamless scenario that Stan had envisaged.

Having sworn an oath to attend the Chicago convention of their fraternal lodge, the Sons of the Desert, Stan and Ollie are determined to honour their vow, even after the latter's wife, Mae Busch, insists that he will be spending the weekend with her on a long-planned trip to the mountains. So, Stan persuades vet Lucien Littlefield to pose as a doctor and prescribe the suddenly ailing Ollie an ocean voyage to Honolulu to aid his recovery. Knowing Busch has no sea legs, Ollie is delighted when she sanctions the excursion and they make the convention in good time.

They have a near squeak, when fellow member Charley Chase insists on calling his sister in Los Angeles and she turns out to be none other than Mae Busch. But the pair have a wonderful time and are busy congratulating themselves on their ruse when they see in the newspaper that the liner on which they were supposed to be sailing has been sunk in a typhoon. Luckily, Busch and Dorothy Christy are at the shipping office seeking news of survivors, so they have time to hide in the attic while they plan their next move. However,, while they cower in the darkness, the wives go to the pictures in a bid to calm their nerves and just happen to see newsreel footage of their husbands alive, well and playing up to the cameras in Chicago.

Busch is furious and can't wait to give Oliver a piece of her mind. But she is piqued when Christy insists that her Stanley will tell her the truth and they make a wager to see who has the more morally upright spouse. By the time they arrive home, however, the boys have been scared on to the roof and Ollie urges Stan to stay strong in their lie or he will tell Christy that he has been smoking. Howver, as they try to sneak away to a hotel, they are followed by a policeman and decide it would be wiser to face their wives than the might of the law.

On entering, they spin a sensational yarn about their trauma at sea. Busch asks how they managed to beat the rescue craft home and they blurt out that they `ship-hiked' as they were so keen to get home. Ollie pleads with Busch that their story is too preposterous to be anything but true. But the pressure of lying to Christy gets to Stan and he not only confesses tearfully to going to the convention, but he also owns up to smoking. Christy makes a big fuss of steering him through the front door like a dead man walking. But, behind closed doors, she dresses him in a robe and pampers him with chocolates and wine for telling the truth and helping her get one over on Busch. She, on the other hand, breaks every piece of crockery in the place over her husband's head and he is sitting in the debris when Stan comes to check on him. He smirks as he puffs on a cigarette and declares that `honesty is the best politics'. But, as he sidles away, Ollie hurls a pan and hits him squarely on the head.

This is one of Laurel and Hardy's tightest pictures and it's hard to argue against the exclusion of sequences in which the pair first cause chaos during the parade by bicycling into a banner and then wind up in chokey after a drunken fracas. Even the songs are all of the piece, with the anthem of the Sons of the Desert (which is, of course, the name of the Laurel and Hardy Fan Club) riffing on such standards as `Give My Regards to Broadway' and `Yankee Doodle Dandy', while `Honolulu Baby' suggested that the picture was a parody of Archie Mayo's musical comedy, Convention City (1933), especially as singer Ty Purvis (who had once been Betty Grable's dance partner) turns in such a mischievous impersonation of its crooner star, Dick Powell.

As ever, Mae Busch steals scenes for fun as Ollie's firebrand wife, while Dorothy Fields provides solid support in a role that she only inherited four days into shooting because Patsy Kelly was held up on Raoul Walsh's Bing Crosby musical, Going Hollywood. Not everyone enjoyed the experience, however, as veteran silent clown Charley Chase resented having to play against genial type as Ollie's obnoxious brother-in-law, while Variety continued its vendetta against Laurel and Hardy by posting a negative review. However, the showbiz bible has been known to lay the odd egg and, on this occasion, it proved to be hard-boiled and the reviewer who laid it was clearly nuts.