Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 18/8/2016)

Following newsreel footage of President Woodrow Wilson arriving in France to lead the treaty negotiations at the end of the Great War, the action in `The First Tantrum: A Sign of Things to Come' opens in the winter of 1918 with seven year-old Prescott (Tom Sweet) dressed as an angel and struggling with his lines in a church Nativity play. While his mother ((Bérénice Bejo) chats with the parish priest, Fr Laydu (Jacques Boudet), Prescott goes outside and starts throwing stones at the villagers as they make their way home. When he a couple of men chase him, he bolts into the forest and collides with a tree. However, his father (Liam Cunningham) scarcely seems concerned, as his wife takes the boy to his room in their rented chateau for a bath before bedtime.

As an aide to Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, Father is deeply involved with the talks at the Palace of Versailles and has spent the evening discussing the problem of self-determination with British journalist Charles Marker (Robert Pattinson) over a scotch-fuelled game of billiards. Marker recently lost his wife and Mother avoids mentioning his loss, as she bids him goodnight. They briefly converse in German, to the frustration of her monolingual husband, and she laments the fact that her home city of Strasbourg is about to be handed to France as a victor's spoil. Marker asks after Prescott and hopes that he is able to make the most of his time in a foreign country.

Bidding farewell to her guest, Mother settles down to play patience and is irritated to be disturbed by Prescott, who has wet the bed during a nightmare. She changes the linen as he bathes and curses the fact that Mona (Yolande Moreau) always seems to have a night off when she is most needed. The following morning, Mother is happy to turn the boy over to Ada (Stacy Martin), a local girl who is helping Prescott with his French. She recognises that he is not in the mood to study and takes him for a walk across the fields. He sulks about being so far away from home and loses his temper when she teases him about his lengthy page boy hair.

Mother is not so willing to let Prescott call the shots, however, and drags him along to see Fr Laydu to apologise for his appalling behaviour after the rehearsal. She translates as the old curé asks Prescott why he threw stones at strangers. But he is reluctant to respond because he doesn't believe he has caused him personal offence and runs away as soon as he is outside. Despite saying sorry to Mother, however, he is made to stand alongside the priest at the end of mass on Christmas Day to apologise to the entire congregation. Such is his repugnance at this public humiliation that Prescott runs home and Mona consoles him as he vomits on the stone floor of his bedroom.

Sunlight warms the room at the start of the second act, `The Second Tantrum: A New Year', as Ada coaxes Prescott through a French retelling of the Aesop fable about a mouse who gnaws through the rope binding the lion who once spared his life. As she reads, Prescott's gaze is fixed on her bosom. She asks if he has learned the moral that little friends might one day prove to be great friends, but he is bored and sends her to tell Mona to bring him some lunch. After an interminable wait, Prescott goes downstairs to investigate the delay and is surprised to find Ada and his father in close proximity in the study.

At supper that night, he asks Mother if Ada had been teaching Father French when he saw them together and there is an awkward silence. Mother urges Prescott to finish his meal, but he refuses to eat and is dispatched to the kitchen, where Mona is instructed not to let him go to bed until his plate has been cleared. After an hour or so, Mona scrapes the cold food into the bin and Prescott hugs her in gratitude.

The next day, as he sits outside with Ada, Prescott makes a grab for her breast and she slaps his hand. But his apology for making her feel uncomfortable is decidedly half-hearted and he is still sulking when Mother says grace with an Ash Wednesday cross on her forehead. Some weeks later, she breaks away from a Lenten procession because a number of cars have pulled up outside her temporary country home and she is surprised to find that Father has invited a number of diplomats discontented with Wilson's plans for redrafting the frontiers of Europe to discuss alternative strategies. She frets that he is taking a risk by going behind the president's back and that she doesn't have adequate provisions for so many unexpected guests. But he reassures her that Lansing is watching his back and that there is nothing to worry about.

Prescott is curious to know what is going on, as the strangers discuss the threat to the continent of Communism. One of the delegates asks Father about his daughter and Prescott is so nettled by the mistake that he walks away (idly running his hand across a wall map of Europe) and returns wearing a badly tied dress that exposes his torso. Father spots him through the half-open door and chases after him before anyone else notices the spectacle. He orders Mona to keep an eye on him, but Prescott politely refuses to let her enter his room.

Frustrated by his wife's rejection of his sexual advances and the suggestion that they have another child, Father leaves for Paris the next morning. Seizing the moment, Prescott locks himself in his room and tells Ada not to bother him for three days. Mother is galled by his intransigence and tells Mona not to feed him until he is ready to behave properly. But the housekeeper feels sorry for the boy and smuggles him a snack under cover of darkness. Unfortunately, Mother catches her and, even though she has worked at the house for 17 years, she is sacked on the spot. Mona hisses that she will devote the rest of her life to destroying the family, but Mother seems unconcerned, even when Prescott pushes her out of his room and screams with fury on learning that Mona has been dismissed.

Ada returns to the house after three days and accompanies Mother to Prescott's room. He allows them inside and sits at his desk to read the Aesop story in much-improved French. Mother and Ada are pleased with his progress, but he announces that he wishes to study alone and Mother promptly fires Ada and recommends that she devotes her life to teaching rather than motherhood. Less bothered by Ada's departure, Prescott barricades himself in his room and refuses to come out when his father returns. Furious that the household has been so disrupted by a small boy, Father breaks down the door and administers such a ferocious beating that he damages Prescott's shoulder.

The last act, `The Third Tantrum: It's a Dragon...' commences with Pathé newsreel footage of Wilson, David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau and Vittorio Orlando appearing on the steps of Versailles with the accompanying caption, `Their work is done!' Mother supervises the staff at a Parisian townhouse, as she organises a celebration dinner to mark the signing of the treaty. As Prescott dresses in a lacy Little Lord Fauntleroy-style outfit, he winces while exercising his shoulder in front of the mirror. Sporting a black sling, he wanders through rooms filled with formally attired gentlemen and takes his place at the table. Mother orders him to sit somewhere else, but a kindly guests allows him to stay where he is.

Father greets the assembly and announces with considerable relief that the war is finally over. He asks Mother to say grace, but she is keen to show off her son and encourages Prescott to say something. Without looking up from his empty plate, he insists that he no longer believes in prayer and, when Mother tries to cajole him, he clambers on to his chair and begins chanting his lack of faith. Embarrassed by the display, Mother tries to force him down, but he slashes her face with a knife and Father chases after him. The child trips while running up the stairs and lies on the landing, as Marker reassures him that everything will be fine.

A coda, `A New Era, or Prescott the Bastard', opens with printing presses churning out documents with the lion head motif that also adorns the red banners hanging from the walls of a government building in an unnamed state in what must be presumed to be the 1930s. Folders are circulated around a table, as a cabal of politicians approve the contents and file downstairs to greet the leader. Cheering crowds are held back by lines of soldiers in brown uniforms, as the bald, but bearded Prescott (Robert Pattinson) looks through the car window with the same glassy, glacial stare he had as a boy. He tells the driver he will walk the rest of the way and, as he steps outside, the focus switches to a young girl in a blue beret, who looks around her uncomprehendingly. As it follows her gaze, the camera executes a series of swishes and canted plunges to convey the chaos that has been unleashed.

What a curate's egg of a picture this is. In many ways, it is intelligent, provocative and technically accomplished. But, in others, it is simplistic, calculating and pretentious. Given the recent rise of right-wing political mavericks across the world, this will be seen in some quarters as the denunciation of personality cult politicians like Donald Trump. But Corbet and Fastvold are also keen to hold Woodrow Wilson and his cohorts to account for condemning Europe to a century of socio-economic decline, idealistic extremism and ethnic resentment. Few film-makers set themselves such ambitious targets, particularly in their feature debut. So, while much of their thinking is a little muddled and some of their conclusions are as facile as they are specious, Corbet deserves considerable credit for trying to make such bold thematic and artistic statements.

He is ably served in the latter endeavour by cinematographer Lol Crawley and production designer Jean-Vincent Puzos, who make such evocative use of both Buda Castle and the Hungarian National Gallery that it's impossible to detect that Corbet was operating on a $5 million budget. Puzos also adds a darkly mischievous touch in decorating the chateau with trinkets acquired by Prescott's unseen uncle, who is not only a textile merchant, but also a Muslim. Even more striking, however, is the score by onetime pop singer Scott Walker, which combines shrieking avant-garde dissonance with the imposing screen classicism of a Bernard Herrmann. The music often feels anachronistic and is cagily used to counterpoint the visuals. But this would be a very different film without it, in the same way that Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975) would Handel's `Sarabande'.

Speaking of Kubrick, this fictional biopic has a tendency to drift into the kind of sombre ostentation that blighted Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and it's easy to see why so many critics have dismissed it as a monumental bore. Others have been frustrated by the psychoanalytical slenderness of a scenario that often preens in its own presumed cleverness. But the weakest aspect is undoubtedly the acting, with Bérénice Bejo struggling to inhabit a role originally intended for Juliette Binoche and Liam Cunningham concentrating too hard on his excellent American accent to modulate his performance as a neglectful martinet.

The casting of Robert Pattison in a dual role invites speculation that Marker is Prescott's real father. But the roving reporter is too sketchily drawn to make much impact in his limited screen time. Yolande Moreau and Stacy Martin prove more successful as the domestics manipulated by Tom Sweet, who is better at staring sullenly with Midwich eyes than he is at delivering loaded lines. In many ways, he recalls Harvey Stephens as Damien in Richard Donner's adaptation of The Omen (1976) and Corbet leans more heavily on this menacing kind of diplomatic childhood than the one concocted by Graham Greene and Carol Reed in The Fallen Idol (1948) and James Ivory, Ismail Merchant and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala in their take on Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day (1993). Yet, in borrowing heavily from Haneke's The White Ribbon (2009), Corbet also sometimes seems to be retracing his steps over ground already covered in his screenplay for Antonio Campos's Simon Killer (2012).

Despite taking gongs for best debut and first-time direction at the Venice Film Festival, the flaws ultimately outnumber the virtues. But, while his writing betrays plenty of geopolitical naiveté, the confidence of Corbet's direction can only be commended. The same goes for his respect for directors as different as Carl Theodor Dreyer, Jean Renoir, Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman, Volker Schlöndorff, Kubrick and Haneke, and it will be intriguing to see what he comes up with second time around.

Cinema lost one of its most fearless mavericks earlier this year when Andrzej Zulawski succumbed to cancer. Like Roman Polanski, Walerian Borowczyk and Jerzy Skolimowski, he was forced to flee Poland after the authorities took a dim view of his allegorical horror, The Devil (1972), after he had been acclaimed for his stark depiction of the Nazi occupation in The Third Part of the Night (1971). He secured cult status in France after coaxing remarkable performances out of Romy Schneider and Isabelle Adjani in The Most Important Thing Is Love (1975) and Possession (1981). But audiences were less convinced by Zulawski's five films with much younger paramour, Sophie Marceau, and he went 15 years without making a picture following their final collaboration on Fidelity (2000), which updated Madame de La Fayette's 17th-century novel, La Princesse de Clèves.

He selected an even more ambitious text for the comeback that proved to be his swan song, as modernist Witold Grombowicz's cult 1965 novel, Cosmos, is even more resistant to adaptation than the tomes that inspired Skolimowski's Ferdyduke (1991) and Jan Jakub Kolski's Pornography (2003). But, taking his cues from such subversive fantasies as Wojiech Has's The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973) and Jacques Rivette's Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974), Zulawski bombards the audience with mesmerising images and leaves it up to the individual viewer to determine what (if anything) their significance might be.

Having failed his law exams, Witold (Jonathan Genet) travels to the Portuguese coast with his friend, Fuchs (Johan Libéreau), who works at the Parisian fashion house, Ralph and Lang. As they wander through some woods, Witold is disturbed by the sight of a sparrow hanging from a tree branch by a tiny noose. He tries to put it to the back of his mind, as they find rooms in a secluded pension run by retired banker Léon Woytis (Jean-François Balmer) and his wife (Sabine Azéma), along with her daughter, Lena (Victória Guerra), and their maid, Catherette (Clémentine Pons), whose upper lip bears a labial disfigurement.

Witold is perplexed by the arrow mark in the ceiling of his room, which is also bears a pronounced yonic stain. As Witold stays in his room to work on his novel, Fuchs heads into the nearby town and returns next morning sporting an array of angry bruises that nobody remarks upon. Instead, Léon spouts gobbledegook (with his many of his bizarre neologisms ending in `bleurgh'), while Madame Woytis launches into excitable diatribes that invariably end unexpectedly in a catatonic silence. Moreover, Lena's fiancé, Lucien (Andy Gillet), disconcerts the already anxious Witold by telling him a story about a garroted chicken.

Convinced that everything around him has acquired an interconnected significance, Witold notices a broken axe in the garden and wonders if it is giving him directions. He is also struck by the vigorous manner in which Madame Woytis chops wood. After conferring with Fuchs, Witold concludes that Catherette is the key to the mystery and breaks into her room searching for clues. But he finds nothing and kills Lena's cat in a fit of pique. He suspends it by its neck and so sours the atmosphere that Lucien suggests that everyone decamps to his clifftop holiday hideaway to recover their spirits.

En route, Madame Woytis befriends a priest (António Simão), who accepts an invitation to join the party and promptly eats an entire camembert at supper. However, Witold is more intrigued by Madame Woytis's niece, Ginette (Clémentine Pons), who resembles Catherette as closely as her husband, Tolo (Ricardo Pereira) does Tintin. But he is not allowed to dwell on the respective lips of Ginette and Catherette, as Léon accuses him during a walk in the forest of being responsible for the recent unexplained events. Witold pleads his innocence, but when Lucien is found hanged, he takes the opportunity to kiss Lena before attempting to throttle her. Even more bizarrely, the priest reveals that he has a swarm of bees inside his trousers.

Back at the guesthouse, Witold and Fuchs pack up their belongings. Madame Woytis is not sorry to see them go. But Lena decides to leave with them, although it's not made clear whether she leaves along or with Witold. As the drama ends, the camera pulls back to reveal the film crew preparing for another take.

This self-reflexive flourish seems an entirely appropriate way to conclude a film stuffed with allusions to Zulawski's cinematic and literary heroes. Stendhal, Leo Tolstory, Luis Buñuel, Jean-Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, Pier Paolo Pasolini and David Lynch appear the most prominent, with Witold and Fuchs seeming at various points to be like Vladimir and Estragon from Waiting for Godot and Terence Stamp's seductively charismatic interloper from Theorem (1968). The presence of Sabine Azéma also suggests a debt to her late husband Alain Resnais and his frequent collaborator, Alan Ayckbourn. But, in parodying the whodunit and the country house farce in this `metaphysical noir thriller', Zulawski remains laudably faithful to the absurdity of Grombowicz's text and its concerns with the elusive nature of freedom, the arbitrary logic of language, the enigmatic riddle of identity and the impossibility of imposing order upon cosmic chaos.

The performances are splendidly offbeat, with Balmer and Azéma relishing their eccentricities, alongside the gangly Genet, who forms an amusing double act with Libéreau before being bewitched by the lips of Guerra and Pons (x2). Cineastes can debate the meaning of the slugs and ants at the dinner table, the suggestively caressed cutlery, the hanging wood blocks and the livid sadomasochist bruising. But Zulawski playfully tempers his intellectualism throughout and the pleasure he takes in making what turned out to be his final film is evident in his pride in Paula Szabo's atmospheric production design, André Szankowski's fluent photography, Julia Gregory's deft editing and Andrzej Korzynski's lushly romantic (and oft-interrupted) score.

Dutch director Tjebbo Penning sticks closely to the tried and trusted crime formula with Clean Hands. Adapted from a novel by René Appel, this draws on the British and French style of crime movie, as it rattles round Amsterdam with a grim muscularity that sometimes feels at odds with the primary perspective, of a gangland wife no longer willing to turn a blind eye to her husband's thuggish drug-dealing activities. There's nothing new in depicting the decline of a crime empire from the viewpoint of a disillusioned spouse. But Penning and co-scenarist Carl Joos offers little psychological insight to give this slick, but superficial thriller some much-needed depth.

When husband Jeroen van Koningsbrugge slips away from the beach during a day out with children Bente Fokkens and Nino den Brave, Thekla Reuten rolls her eyes in frustration at another broken promise. But when best friend Camilla Siegertsz's dies in a traffic accident and cops Cees Geel and Frederik Brom conduct an early morning house search, Reuten begins to suspect that all is not well with the shady business that pays off her credit card. Van Koningsbrugge reassures her that everything is fine and she maintains the pretence with Fokkens and Den Brave that their father sells fishing tackle. But when her sullen tweenage son finds a gun in the shed, she whisks the kids off to stay with her mother, Trudy De Jong.

Reuten tells Van Koningsbrugge that she wants him to go straight and urges him to buy a beach bar. He lures her home with specious assurances and tells her that things are a bit tricky with mute boss Jim van den Woude because Siegertsz's husband had to be silenced to stop him squealing to the police after son Sol Vinken was caught dealing drugs. But, much to brother Teun Kuilboer's chagrin, Van Koningsbrugge is also thinking of doing a little trading on the side to pay for Reuten's bar and to make up the shortfall from client Han Oldigs's failure to pay his debts on time. Even after Belgian pill peddler Jenne Declair threatens him with violence for trespassing on his pitch, Van Koningsbrugge borrows money from Reuten's former partner, Tjebbo Gerritsma, who needs to make a quick killing to bolster his flagging mattress company.

Furious that their offer for a beach club has been rejected, Reuten bawls out Van Koningsbrugge for letting Fokkens see him beat up a welching customer and warns him that she will leave him unless he quits the game. When he snaps back that he is risking his life for his family, Reuten realises he is losing his grip and follows his car to pick up Den Brave after he has been dropped off at judo class. But she is powerless to prevent an attack by motorcycle assassins and leaves Van Koningsbrugge with a wounded hand as she drags her son to safety.

Rushing home, Reuten packs and steals a sizeable sum from a cash stash in the shed. She seeks refuge with Angela Schijf, her old friend from hairdressing school, while Van Koningsbrugge and Kuilboer bicker about whether Declair or Oldigs tried to kill him. His problems are compounded when Van den Woude orders him off Declair's turf. But his main concern is that Reuten has defied him and might blab to the cops. He pulps Gerritsma to discover her whereabouts and pours petrol through the letterbox of Schijf's salon when Reuten refuses to speak to him. They escape the blaze through a warren of back alleys and catch the train next morning for the airport. However, Van Koningsbrugge coerces Schijf into betraying her friend and he abducts Fokkens and Den Brave while Reuten is in the washroom trying to hide bundles of cash in her luggage.

As she realises her children are missing, Reuten is confronted by Geel and Brom, who offer her immunity and sanctuary if she testifies against her spouse. But she knows they couldn't protect her and would rather return to Van Koningsbrugge than live in constant fear. She takes a taxi to the multi-storey car park and slinks into the passenger seat beside the triumphant, but clearly unhinged Van Koningsbrugge. He hoots with derision as he gives the pursuing Kuilboer and Declair the slip and suggests exotic holiday destinations to his increasingly terrified children. But it's only when he parks on a level crossing that Reuten divines his intentions and pleads with him to see sense. She launches herself at him and his gun falls out of his pocket. Reaching round from the back seat, Den Brave grabs the weapon and shoots his father in the back. With his dying breath, Van Koningsbrugge tells his son not to feel bad about what he has done.

The picture closes with a coda set in a sleepy Spanish coastal town, as Van den Woude enters Reuten's hairdressing salon and asks for a trim. She refuses payment and he seems content that she has turned her back on her former life. As he sidles away, Fokkens and Den Brave go swimming in the sea and Reuten looks on anxiously as they wander into the distance.

Directed at a fair clip and bullishly played by a solid ensemble, this is vastly superior to the average BritCrime thick ear. But too many secondary characters are ciphers who exist solely either to complicate matters for the seething Van Koningsbrugge or to offer succour to the plucky, if hardly resourceful Reuten. Despite the odd playful tumble, there's little tangible evidence that Van Koningsbrugge is the great love of Reuten's life. However, she clearly adores the lifestyle funded by his ill-gotten gains and her sneering dismissal of the teacher accusing Fokkens of starting a fight and the ballet mistress who suggests she has grown too tall reveal the haughty complacency that is about to be rudely shattered by Van Koningsbrugge's steepling descent into megalomanic madness.

Crisply photographed by Danny Elsen, the slick, but largely superficial action is driven along by a Han Otten score. At times, the generic plotline recalls Alice Wincour's Disorder and Jonnie Malachi's Breakdown, but Reuten never seems in palpable peril, while Penning struggles to generate the necessary suspense, while also missing the opportunity to explore the effect on adoring kids of discovering that their father is a monster.

Jack Whitehall is currently appearing in a series of hilarious Olympic-related advertisements, but his talents are simply not suited to leading the vocal cast of Asterix and Obelix: Mansions of the Gods, Louis Clichy and Alexandre Astier's CGI adaptation of a 1971 comic book of almost the same name by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. This is the thirteenth feature to star the indomitable Gaul and his lunkish sidekick and the first in 3-D. But, despite the typically engaging story, this feels frustratingly flat, as though the animators were trying too hard to distance the picture from previous cartoon incarnations and to capture a new audience for characters that are so popular in France that they have their own theme park.

Seething that he has yet to capture the sole Breton village to resist the might of Rome, Julius Caesar (Jim Broadbent) hatches a plan with the architect Squaronthehypotenus to build a vast imperial outpost on its doorstep that will force the indomitable Gauls into submission by integration. Senator Prospectus () suggests calling the settlement the Mansions of the Gods and appoints a centurion (Greg Davies) to protect Squaronthehypotenus as he scouts the forest location.

Unfortunately, Asterix (Jack Whitehall) and Obelix (Nick Frost) run into the party while they are hunting boar and the latter's feisty pet, Dogmatix, bites Squaronthehypotenus in the seat of his toga when he makes a mark on a tree. Obelix sends him into orbit with a casual slap and the friends return to the village, where yet another fight has broken out between Fulliautomatix the blacksmith (Richard McCourt) and Unhygienix the fishmonger (Dominic Wood). Typically, Chief Vitalstatistix (Matt Berry) is more interested in brawling than keeping tabs on the Romans, but Druid Getafix senses that the interlopers are up to no good.

Too scared to work during the day, Squaronthehypotenus and his slave gang start pulling up trees on the night shift. However, Getafix produces a batch of rapid-grow acorns to replace the lost timber and the Centurion wishes he was anywhere else in the Empire. He clearly wouldn't want to be in the Colosseum, however, where mosaic artist Anonymous (Harry Enfield) and his wife Dulcia (Catherine Tate) are enjoying an afternoon of gladiatorial slaughter with their young son, Mischievous. During a break between the bouts, a series of scrolls advertise the Mansions of the Gods in a bid to persuade the reluctant Romans to relocate to Brittany. Moreover, Prospectus holds a prize draw with the winner getting a luxury apartment and Anonymous is less than enthralled when Caesar selects his number.

Back in Gaul, Squaronthehypotenus threatens to work the slaves to death in order to clear the forest. So, Getafix sends Asterix and Obelix to give their leader an amphora of the secret potion that gives the villagers the superhuman strength that is crucial to their independence. However, the slaves use it to thump the Romans and negotiate a contract that guarantees them wages, daily meals, freedom and apartments in the complex. Realising they have him over a barrel, the Centurion agrees to the demands and is pleasantly surprised when they finish the first building in record time. He is even more relieved when Asterix (who is in a bad mood because an acorn was accidentally planted in his hut) refuses to let his neighbours demolish the edifice because it is already full of Roman civilians.

Anonymous and Dulcia are among the new arrivals. But Squaronthehypotenus insists they have the wrong documentation to move into their apartment and they wind up finding shelter in the Gaulish village at the insistence of Vitalstatistix's wife Impedimenta, after Obelix befriends Mischievous in the woods. In the days that follow, residents from the Mansions of the Gods wander into the village and find the prices so competitive that they start patronising the local merchants. Geriatrix and Cacofonix open their own antique and fish stalls to rival Fulliautomatix and Unhygienix and Asterix is so appalled by the behaviour of his compatriots that he leaves to reside in the second block that has just been completed by the slaves (who have been tricked out of their liberty and duped into accepting pittance pay by the unscrupulous Prospectus).

Asterix tries to drive the Romans away by having Cacophonix perform a welcome song. But Unhygenix silences him with a well-aimed mackerel as the Gauls relocate to the estate to be closer to their customers. Asterix, Obelix and Getafix return home in dismay. However, Caesar has learned that the Gauls are divided and orders the Centurion to raze the village to the ground. He arrests Getafix before he can make any magic potion and also manages to overpower Obelix. But Asterix remains on guard at and convinces the legionaries that he has taken a swig of potion and could pulp them at will. Led by Vitalstatistix, the other Gauls rally to his cause and even the Centurion can't decide if he is bluffing or not.

While the soldiers vote to see if they are willing to attack, Asterix catapults himself to the Mansions of the Gods and rescues Getafix and Mischievous from the dungeons and the druid begins brewing a cauldron of potion. However, Caesar has arrived to enjoy his overdue moment of victory and is so annoyed with Squaronthehypotenus for laying on a banquet that he orders the food to be thrown away. Naturally, it is tipped down a chute leading to the starving Obelixs cell and he regains his strength in time to fight off the advancing legion and use a watering can to pour potion into the mouths of the Gauls putting up some stubborn resistance below.

The result of the ensuing scrimash is a foregone conclusion and the story ends with the Gauls feasting by the campfire in their unconquerable corner by the sea. Fans of the books might find the denouement a little shouty, but they should warm to this amusing rendition that sticks reasonably closely to the esteemed Derek Hockridge and Andrea Bell translation of the original text. Some may take offence at the caricatured depiction of the black slaves, but the computer-generated imagery is less puffily plastic than is often the case and represents a marked improvement on the mediocre graphics concocted by Danes Stefan Fjeldmark and Jesper Möller for Asterix and the Vikings (2006).

While Jack Whitehall does his best as Asterix, he sounds too young for the part, while Nick Frost settles for playing Obelix as a lovably dumb galoot. Harry Enfield and Catherine Tate struggle to make an impression as the exiled Roman couple, while CBBC favourites Dick and Dom ham it up gamely as the ever-feuding Fulliautomatix and Unhygienix. Rather frustratingly, however, the closing credits of the print seen gave the US rather than the UK vocal cast, so it has not been possible to identify all of the key performers. Nevertheless, the standouts are Greg Davies as the increasingly flummoxed Centurion, Jim Broadbent as the snarling Caesar and Matt Berry as the wonderfully pompous Vitalstatistix.

Goodness knows what younger audiences unfamiliar with the crazy world of Goscinny and Uderzo will make of it all. But, notwithstanding the allure of big-screen stereoscopy. one suspects this will do brisker business on disc among middle-aged aficionados too embarrassed to be spotted paying to see it at the cinema. The week's other animation stands a better chance of enticing some holidaying schoolkids, but Blinky Bill: The Movie looks likely to drive the majority of accompanying grown-ups to distraction.

Blinky Bill (Ryan Kwanten) is a koala bear who lives in the woodland town of Green patch in Australia. His father, Bill Koala (Richard Roxburgh), rescues lost animals from the Outback and he bids farewell to Blinky before setting off on a mission to find the Sea of White Dragons. Blinky is disappointed that he is not considered old enough for an adventure and resents having to stay behind with his mother, Betty (Deborah Mailman). But she reminds him that he has an important duty to help protect Green patch from Mayor Cranklepot (Barry Otto), a scheming goanna who wants to become king of the newly named Goannasburg. Unfortunately, in expressing his distaste for Cranklepot, Blinky destroys a statue and he is sent to his room.

The next day, Cranklepot tells Betty that he intends cutting Green patch off from the outside world to prevent interlopers from stealing their precious supplies and resources. He also informs her that he will be turning her home into his new headquarters and Betty is very cross with Blinky for making the mayor mad. Anxious to join up with his father, Blinky asks pals Splodge the kangaroo, Robert the lyrebird (both Cam Ralph) and Marcia the mouse (Charlotte Rose Hamlyn) to cover for him while he ventures into the great wide open. While Robert throws his voice to convince Betty that her son is still sulking in his room, Blinky makes his getaway and fetches up at Koala Joe's Roadhouse.

He is frightened by the cars that hurtle along the highway. But, as he searches for food and water in the convenience store, Blinky is cornered by Sir Claude (Rufus Sewell), a feral cat with a fondness for koala meat. Luckily, he is able to give the ravenous feline the slip and hitch a ride on the back of a truck. There he meets Nutsy (Robin McLeavy), a female koala who has lived her entire life in zoos. He asks why she is in a cage and she replies that she likes living in captivity, as she never has to worry about being taken care of. But Blinky thinks koalas should live in the wild and Nutsy is furious with him when they fall off the back of the vehicle and her cage is smashed.

Despite Blinky promising to get her to the nearest zoo, Nutsy feels scared and insists on carrying the broken cage door. She quickly loses faith in her new friend when he admits he is lost. But help comes in the form of Jacko (David Wenham), a frill-necked lizard who claims to know the way to both the zoo and the Sea of White Dragons. Unfortunately, Sir Claude had been following the truck and picks up the trail of the young koalas and tries to pounce on them. However, the cage door makes a handy sledge and they manage to slide to safety with Jacko down a steep bank of rocks.

Back in Green patch, however, Betty has discovered her son's deception and she forces Robert, Splodge and Marcia to tell her where he's gone. As she sets out to find him, Blinky makes a new friend in Wombo (Barry Humphries), an eccentric wombat who introduces Blinky and Nutsy to Beryl and Cheryl (both Toni Collette), a pair of emu sisters who offer to fly the koalas over the desert so that Blinky can find his dad. As they rest at a waterhole, Blinky tells Nutsy about Green patch and boasts that Bill is a hero. But Nutsy reveals that she ended up in a zoo after her parents perished in a bush fire and she admits that it would be nice to live somewhere special.

Betty arrives at Wombo's hut shortly after Sir Claude trashes it after tricking the wombat into telling him where the koalas have gone. Concerned that the cat will find her son before her, Betty urges Wombo to fix a sail to his battered old car and they go whizzing across the sand towards Croc Canyon. Blinky, Nutsy and Jacko have already arrived and they have to skip past some snapping saltwater crocodiles, as well as Sir Claude, in order to reach sanctuary on high ground. However, Blinky finds some of Bill's belongings and is convinced that he has died. He vows to make him proud by taking Nutsy to the zoo.

The following morning, they set out for the zoo. Blinky and Jacko are sorry to see Nutsy go, but before she can climb the fence, she sees Blinky being captured by a zoo keeper and rejoins Jacko to plot how to rescue him. Blinky is placed in a cage and taken to a storage unit, which is guarded by a squawking parrott named Jorge (Tin Pang). As he curses his luck, he wishes he was back in Green patch and the mention of the place causes Bill to call out to him from a cage on an upper shelf. Blinky is overjoyed to discover that his father is alive and well and listens as he tells him how he was picked up at Croc Canyon.

On hearing that Cranklepot has plans to ruin their home, Bill hatches an escape plan and they succeed in breaking out. However, Jorge raises the alarm and the koalas have to come up with another ingenious idea in order to get over the fence. Blinky enlists the help of Beryl and Cheryl to form a kind of emu plane that will enable them to fly to freedom. But Sir Claude has arrived at the zoo and he makes a lunge for Bill. The quick-thinking Blinky intervenes, but finds himself at the snarling cat's mercy. Just as he is about to unleash a claw, Betty and Wombo fetch up and she punches Sir Claude and grabs on to a dangling rope so that everyone can fly to safety.

But Sir Claude is a redoubtable foe and he makes one last play for Blinky before he tumbles towards the crocodile pit and the flyer soars into the sky. Blinky introduces his parents to Nutsy and Bill promises Betty that he will never leave Green patch again. Wombo tows the flyer home and the koalas arrive just as Cranklepot is proclaiming himself king. Bill gives Blinky permission to pelt him with fruit bombs and he finds himself babysitting baby animals as the film ends.

Created by New Zealander Dorothy Wall back in 1933, Blinky Bill has long been a firm favourite of Australian children. The pioneering animator Yoram Gross produced a cartoon feature, Blinky Bill: The Mischievous Koala, in 1992 and Deane Taylor and co-directors Noel Cleary, Alexs Stadermann and Alex Weight stick to the spirit of their forbears in this lively CGI update. The visuals are bright and colourful, but can't compare with the more sophisticated pixellation produced in the United States. However, some of the country's best-known actors contribute engaging vocalisations alongside the peppy Ryan Kwanten, although the likes of Toni Collette and Barry Humphries aren't given nearly enough to do.

The story rattles along and younger viewers will delight in learning about the unusual animals in the wonderful land of Oz. At times, the action becomes a bit crash bang in that computer game-theme park way that has become all too familiar in US animations. But the lessons on conservation, habitat and different species learning to overcome their differences and live together are well worth learning by viewers of all ages.

Whether casting an acerbic glance over North Korea (Return to the Border, 2005), the police (Crime and Punishment, 2007), the legal system (Petition: The Court of Complaints, 2009) and AIDS discrimination (Together, 2010), Zhao Liang has been one of the driving forces of the independent documentary movement in millennial China. Never one to mince his words, Zhao has consistently courted controversy and the Beijing government has blocked domestic screenings of his latest outing, Behemoth. Somewhat surprisingly, this analysis of the price being paid by the nation for the industrial boom has been passed for export and its quirkly meld of Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy and the landscape studies of Michael Glawogger and Edward Burtynsky is bound to cause something of a stir.

As explosions rip through a mining region and sound of throat singing can be heard on the soundtrack, a caption quotes Dante describing how God creating the Behemoth on the fifth day and how the largest monster on Earth was so ravenous that a thousand mountains were sacrificed to feed it. In voiceover, a latterday Dante explains how the detonations woke him from a dream and he found himself on the edge of a precipice in a desolate wilderness. He laments that nothing flourishes any longer in a landscape whose streams have long dried up and been replaced by silence. A naked man is seen cowering against the horizon, while a miner with a large mirror on his back clambers over the rocks. The Voice asks the stranger to be his guide and they set off together to explore a country that has changed beyond all recognition in a dismayingly short space of time.

A swift cut shifts the scene to the Mongolian steppe, as a horseman gallops across the verdant plain. Having been watered, his flock of sheep spread across the fields to graze and a small boy trips in the lush grass as he follows the animals. A yurt stands proudly under a lowering sky. But another abrupt cut returns the focus to the Mirrorman, as the Voice informs us that the monster sends in machinery to do its dirty work. The trucks and diggers excavating the scenery seem dwarfed, but, as a man in a protective mask sits impassively in the cab of a mobile drilling rig, it is clear that they are inexorably cutting the mountain down to size.

Other machines belch out dust and pollution throughout the night and, as morning comes, one of the drivers logs off and returns to the rickety hut that serves as a dormitory and he clambers into his bunk to grab some sleep after a simple supper. By contrast, a colleague washes in a small bowl by the door before heading out on the day shift. A lift descends into the bowels of the earth with a single flashlight trained on the wall, as it plunges down three levels to where a train trundles along a track to take the crew even further underground. As one miner walks along, his boots slosh in water and the hiss of distant equipment can be heard before a sudden explosion causes him to turn and cower. Shrugging nonchalantly, he walks on and the camera fixes on a man operating a water drill on the seam.

Far away from the heat and perils of the coalface, sheep run on a scrappy piece of greenery. An industrial chimney stack can be seen in the distance and the camera pans left to follow the dust trail of lorries driving across what is now a decimated wilderness of blacks and greys. Descending to a larger patch of pasture, the camera looks on as the sheep scurry down the sides of a vast slagheap under the watchful gaze of a shepherd on a white horse. Above the grazing animals bleating happily, a row of dumper trucks empty their loads to increase the size of a heap that it will eventually submerge the vital grassland.

Over a shot from the base of the slagheap, with some livestock visible in the distance, the Voice opines that life's greatest sorrow is to live with desire but without hope and that there is nothing worse than recalling times of joy in the midst of misery. As a gang arrives on a tractor to mine the slagheap for coal in the dead of night, the Voice declares that none of the gold glinting in the moonlight has brought solace to those who toiled to uncover it. As dawn breaks, several gangs can be seen loading their little flatbeds and, by first light, women appear to help out the men working in tandem, so that one loosens the slag for the other to shovel it on to a trailer. They work quickly and silently, and seem oblivious to the fact that their illegal activity is being filmed.

Several faces look into the lens in defiant close-up and the Voice reveals that the degree to which the workers become caked with dust depends not upon their efforts, but on the speed of the wind. The camera watches from the side of the road as several tractors bounce along empty at the end of the night. One is filmed with a huge lorry up its bumper, as if to emphasise the difference in the scale of their operation. A woman washes her face with a cloth in front of a mirror to remove the coal dust. Another helps her wiry, but muscular husband clean his back. He goes outside to water down his precious potted palm with a hose pipe. Another man sits as his wife chops the vegetables for their supper and they slurp in silence from their soup bowls.

Elsewhere, young parents feed their son at a low table on what looks like a strip of garden. But a change of angle reveals that they live in a yurt and that their flock is grazing in the distance, with another slagheap in the background and the sound of trucks rattling infernally in the distance. The boy plays naked in the dust, as a child would play in the sand at the beach, while his mother tends to the flock.

A curious use of digital fault lines breaks up the vista to reinforce the notion that the landscape is being dislocated and an ancient way of life is being destroyed in the process. The trucks are shown moving in the distance, while the naked man adopts a foetal position in the mid-range, as the Voice complains that while his ancestors once sang in sweet air and sunshine, he now grieves for the shattered earth.

The camera looks up from the base of a slagheap as yet another truck unloads and sends up a plume of dust. Mirrorman watches, as if trying to gauge the height of this man-made monstrosity. A tree clings to the side of the rock with grim determination, as the dust billows in its bid to obliterate Nature. The camera pulls back to a long shot showing a mound resembling a beast with dust and smoke clearing around it, as though something was erupting out of the soil to lay the Earth to waste.

Mirrorman leads the Voice through the rocks, where a Buddha head sits in inglorious isolation in the middle of nowhere. The Voice relates the legend that the mine owner had a dream in which the mountain god blamed him for destroying his habitat and he built the Buddha in panic to atone. A man walks past carrying a potted palm and he stops to look at the blasted horizon. An explosion in the distance triggers a droning accompaniment to the sound of a Chinese fiddle, as the camera surveys a gouged landscape that looks post-apocalyptic in its utter desolation. The trucks and the odd building seen from afar look tiny against this vast expanse of industrial vandalism.

As a snake slides across the blackened soil, the Voice proclaims that wherever men are uprooted and wealth accumulates, the monster will appear like this serpentine tempter from Eden. Before the import of his words can be digested, a sudden cut alights upon a shepherd riding with his staff and holding a lamb. The camera reframes to a swathe of wilderness, as a woman leads a child, a man carrying a TV, two fellows lugging a trunk and a chap wheeling a motorbike. Who they are, where they are going and what they symbolise is not made clear. The ridges of the excavated mountain lie behind them and when the camera repositions again, there is another loud explosion as another parcel of land is blown apart.

A dissolve shifts the scene to an industrial plant whose chimney stacks and cooling towers are almost obliterated by smog. The ground is waterlogged and the site feels godforsaken as the camera pans as though it has stumbled into the outer reaches of Hell. A thrumming guitar riff accompanies a travelling shot with past a long line of coal trucks parked bumper to bumper on the road. Another shot passes under the enormous iron pipes that link the various parts of the sprawling structure. A cut to a patch of blue sky reveals a streak of orange flame flashing across it, like a dragon's breath.

The light seems bright against the dark heavens before the screen reds out and the solid block of livid colour dissolves to show the scorching heat of the furnaces. Rivulets of molten metal glow through the thick smoke and, as the music has becomes thrummingly more percussive and insistent, the irresistible impression is that the Voice has arrived in Hell. Men in hard hats and welding masks prod and scrape the surface of the molten river with long poles (some with rakes, dampers or scoops on the end), as the cacophonous sound of screeching machinery grinds unendingly in the background. They sweat profusely and take every chance to swig water or open their jackets. No explanation is given as to what they are doing, but it looks arduous and monotonous and resembles medieval paintings of the damned stoking the fires of the Inferno.

Over close-ups of the eyes and faces of labourers dripping with sweat and old before their time, the Voice declares that their features look as if they had been baked by molten iron and he concedes that he has no idea how they might have looked before. Filmed through a doorway so he resembles a figure in a Vermeer painting, one man washes in a bare room and picks at his calloused hands to remove ingrained dirt and bits of hard skin.

Having been through this hellhole of scalding flame, the Voice feels drawn back to the coal sorters and sees a man return from his shift to be greeted by his limping wife. He works on his tractor, while she bathes a swollen leg with hot water. Neither say much. There's no point.

The screen greys out and dissolves slowly back to show a tiny white hut on a road beside a vast complex. The image clears as two lorries lumber along the pocked road and the dust they throw up makes the scene disappear again. Along the paved highway, a man in an orange hi-vis jacket valiantly sweeps the pavement.

Another cut deposits the Voice in a hospital, where a man is having his lungs pumped. The camera locates jars full of black liquid before pausing in front of a man breathing asthmatically, who looks apologetic as he coughs. Others lie in bed and try to summon the energy to engage with their visitor. Some don't look very old, but all appear exhausted after what can only pass for a life of hardship and back-breaking toil. The Voice avers that the Mirrorman has brought him to his mountain and he weeps for the land. A man dozes off in his home, while another breathes through a tube in his nose attached to the machine that is keeping him alive. One woman looks at a photograph of her dead husband, while others join a laudable, but futile protest behind a large banner outside an imposing government building behind a well-guarded perimeter fence.

The scene cuts to a graveyard with the ubiquitous trucks in the background and the Voice hopes that there is no room in Hell for the people buried here, as they have suffered enough. Chimney stacks belch in the distance behind a statue of a woman (perhaps a mother), while concrete sheep occupy a rare patch of greenery. Inside a nearby foundry, coils of steel wire are produced and loaded on to lorries by overhead cranes. Over a point-of-view travelling shot, the Voice testifies that he has witnessed the sacrifices that produced this metal. He dispassionately states that the coils are carried away to build the paradise of our desires.

As the throat singing resumes on the soundtrack, the Voice arrives in the outskirts of a metropolis. Everything looks ordered on an estate of pristine orange brick. Yet it's clear that no one lives in these high-rise tenements, as they were built to house workers who are no longer required because the bubble burst and there were no jobs for them. The screen blues out. Then turns grey. It dissolves back on to a dropping crane shot that shows the naked man lying in the desert. The Voice wonders if he is still dreaming or if he is already in Paradise. He stands naked in the long grass, with the deserted city in front of him. He explains that this is the destination of all his dreams - like a mirage after an ocean storm. The camera performs a wide panning arc showing the grey concrete and red bricked buildings huddled together - like high-rise Terra Cotta Warriors mocking the free market's great leap forward and, yet, still standing proud and tall as far as the eye can see.

On a windswept street, a man in an orange hi-vis chases a ball of tumbleweed, while another shuffles along with a bag to pick up litter. In paradise, the Voice says, everything is clean and work is relaxing (even a little boring). But no residents can be seen because this is a ghost city. Another litter-picker meanders along a long road whose markings are so white it seems unlikely it has ever seen a car. Mirrorman appears with the potted palm carrier reflected in the glass, as they walk through the gleaming orange buildings. The Voice intones that while this feels like a dream, it isn't. He insists that we have become the monster and its minions.

A caption confirms that there are hundreds of newly constructed ghost cities lying idle across China. Another admits that millions of migrant workers suffer from pneumoconiosis and that hundreds of thousands have already died from the disease. Finally, a closing caption acknowledges that coal extraction over the last 30 years has reduced the lake areas of Inner Mongolia by some 20% and done incalculable damage to the soil.

Such stark facts and statistics drive home the evidence that Zhao Liang amasses in this harrowing documentary. No one is identified on screen, but Shang Dengxiang, Ba Te'er, Ta Na, Zhang Xianquan, Xiao Suo, Yang Chaoke, Sa Ren and Xiao Zhang and their families are thanked for the courage with which they face their hardships. Audiences should join that chorus, while lamenting the consumerist clamour that subjects so many fellow occupants of our fragile planet to such misery, poverty and the almost inevitable onset of a fatal disease. In directing his camera towards this nameless individuals, Zhang is pointing a finger at everyone who contributes to their exploitation. Fuelled by is fury, some of his images have a terrifying poetry. But, then, the point of this unrelenting odyssey is to burn indelible impressions into the mind in the hope of changing habits and ameliorating lives.

It has always been the policy of this column to provide full and considered reviews of as many of the week's releases as possible. Sometimes, however, the very nature of a film makes it difficult to be either comprehensive or frank in its discussion. Curiously, over the past fortnight, this has been the case with three documentaries whose content and/or perspective appears to preclude open assessment. In two instances, the tactics of the film-makers are so abstruse that it's impossible to discern their precise motivation, while the other picture centres on an individual who is so notoriously litigious that it would be foolhardy to go into customary detail in examining findings that he vigorously continues to refute. Some may regard this as an abnegation of critical duty. But, every now and then, prudence has to take precedence over opinionation.

This critic has written at length elsewhere on Ashish Ghadiali's feature-length interview with Moazzam Begg, The Confession: Living the War on Terror. So, we shall content ourselves with echoing the misgivings stated there about the content and form of this troubling project. No stranger to documentaries, having previously appeared in Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side and Chris Atkins's Taking Liberties (both 2007), as well as a couple of profiles of fellow Guantanámo Bay inmate, Omar Khadr, Begg discusses his background, beliefs and activities with measured calm. While conceding that he studied with members of Al-Qaeda, he insists that he only admitted being a member in order to avoid execution and secure his day in court. Ultimately, he was released without charge and successfully sued the British government over the severity of his treatment.

Subsequent charges of abetting the rebels in Syria were dismissed when the case collapsed in 2014. Yet, while he continues to champion the cause of multiculturalism in the UK, Begg remains a proud Muslim who advocates the purest, noblest form of jihad, which is to rise above conflict. He has obviously rehearsed his elusive accounts of his time in Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and Syria, as well as his three-year incarceration in Bagram and Guantánamo. But attentive viewers will be prompted by his spoken and body language to speculate about the consistency and subtext of his testimony. Indeed, many will be curious to know how Begg would fare with a more relentless inquisitor.

Steve Hoover seems equally unsure how to proceed in Almost Holy, a profile of the controversial Ukrainian pastor Gennadiy Mokhnenko, who is hailed as a latterday saint by his supporters and demonised as a 21st-century Rasputin by his foes. Combining archive material with his own footage, Hoover tries to remain objective. But the grim realities of life on the streets of the decaying industrial city of Mariupol make it difficult to reach any conclusive judgements about Mokhnenko and his motives and methods.

As the son of two alcoholics, Mokhnenko founded the Pilgrim Republic rehabilitation centre in 2000 and he has since dedicated himself to rescuing the abused and the addicted that the embattled state has allowed to slip through the net. He isn't always subtle in bundling victims into his van and often resorts to vigilante violence when dealing with the pimps, paedophiles and drug-pushing pharmacists who prey upon them. But Mokhnenko - who has assumed the nickname `Crocodile' after a superheroic character in a Soviet cartoon series - always seems prepared to act first and ask questions later.

Among those forcibly taken under his wing are a deaf-mute victim of immuration and rape who has lost her baby, a young boy whose addict father is terminally ill and an alcoholic who neglects her daughter when not prostituting herself for vodka. Moreover, in addition to their own three children, Mokhnenko and his wife Lena have also adopted 32 foundlings. As he preaches a sermon to some women prisoners or chows down on a hot dog, Mokhnenko appears genial, compassionate and grounded. But not everyone he plucks from adversity wants to be rescued. Moreover, his penchant for appearing on television appears to have fostered a messianic complex that prompts Mokhnenko to take the law into his own hands when meting out some street justice.

Guided by executive producer Terrence Malick, Hoover ably switches achronologically between John Pope's meticulously composed urban vistas, eruptions of handheld reportage and calculating passages of evocative slow-motion to capture the atmosphere in a city whose tensions have become exacerbated since Vladimir Putin began taking an overly neighbourly interest in Ukrainian domestic affairs. But, in proclaiming Mokhnenko to be a beacon of hope in a bleakening hellhole, Hoover proves strangely reluctant to delve deeper into his distinctive brand of tough love (`I don’t need permission to do good deeds') or the methods he uses to detox and rehabilitate his charges.

Finally, we come to Tickled, an exposé of an online fetish scam by the New Zealand duo of David Farrier and Dylan Reeve that needs to be approached with a good deal of caution, as the man behind this seedy operation is a lawyer with no sense of humour or shame and very deep pockets. As he has tried to block a film that boasts Stephen Fry as an associate producer, it seems sensible to follow the lead of others in avoiding naming him in this review (even though his exploitative and intimidatory tactics mean that he doesn't deserve anonymity). But, rather than condemning the critic for lacking the courage of his convictions, let's say that this a rare, but judicious case of spoiler sensitivity.

While trawling the Internet for a suitably quirky story, Auckland television personality David Farrier came across clips for what was branded Competitive Endurance Tickling. While researching the subject, however, he received threatening and homophobic emails from the American company promoting this niche sport. When his editor buddy Dylan Reeve does a little delving, he discovers that Jane O'Brien Media has reserved dozens of tickling-related domain names. But this snooping brings the threat of a law suit from high-powered New York attorney Romeo Salta, as well as a personal visit from three wise men from Jane O'Brien named Mirko, Adam and Kevin.

The latter cautions Farrier and Reeve to back off. But they do exactly the opposite and fly to the United States to interview TJ Gretzner, a promising American footballer who describes how he signed up to the Competitive Endurance Tickling to make some quick cash for his family. He filmed a few videos and thought no more of it. But, then, the clips began appearing all over the Internet and polite requests to have them taken down prompted a torrent of a threatening abuse from one Debbie J. Kuhn, who even wrote to TJ's coaches and prospective employers to denounce him as a gay child-molesting drug fiend.

Shocked by the testimony, Farrier and Reeve high-tailed to Orlando, Florida to watch Richard Ivey record some consensual content for his tickling website, My Friends' Feet. But, while he enthuses about the profits he makes, the Kiwis head to Los Angeles to hook up with Dave Starr, who used to recruit `athletes' for a tickling site run by Terri DiSisto (aka Terri Tickle). He reveals that Terri started sending abusive messages to himself and his mother Barbara after he ceased working for her and he provides Farrier with copies that convince him that Terri Tickle and Jane O'Brien are one and the same.

Having chatted with Alden, a former participant who claims that tickling videos pop up everywhere with the potential to ruin lives, Farrier and Reeve contact journalists Deborah Scoblionkov and Hal Karp, who reveal the lengths to which Terri/Jane were/are prepared to go in order to spam and shame those who had the temerity to disassociate themselves from the tickling demiworld. Karp also produces a zip file that puts the co-directors on the track of a disgraced high school principal whose Wall Street lawyer father had tried to use his influence when he was charged with computer fraud and abuse.

Rather than following their suspect to his luxury apartment in Garden City, Long Island, Farrier and Reeve meet tickling recruiter Jordan Schillaci in the recession-shattered city of Muskegon, Michigan. He explains that Jane O'Brien Media has instructed him to prey on Mixed Martial Arts cage fighters needing a little financial boost (although they preferred redheads and Asians) and admits that one of the kids he auditioned in a local hotel room was underage. But he is shocked when Farrier mentions the name of his paymaster and, realising they now have their man bang to rights, the pair ignore their nervous producer to stake him out until they manage to force him into speaking on camera during an excursion to a snowbound coffee shop.

Having found more incriminating evidence in private documents accidentally posted online, Farrier shows Salta how his good name has been co-opted in a concerted campaign of cyberbullying. He also speaks on the phone to the stepmother of his quarry, who reveals that he was cosseted by his mother and often bullied as a child. She is disappointed to learn that he has started his nonsense again and confirms that he has been using money inherited from his parents to fund his addiction for tickling videos.

As captions disclose that Competitive Endurance Tickling is still in full swing (with `tickle cells' being active in Britain, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Canada and Australia), one is left to ponder the staggering number of similar tales that are undoubtedly lurking in the darkest recesses of the worldwide web. Considering how close they come to getting out of their depth after realising the magnitude of the story, Farrier and Reeve deserve considerable credit for persisting and taking such enormous risks. But their claims have been contested by tickling film producer Kevin Clarke (one of the trio to fly to Auckland and who is also highly visible at an LA film studio) and by a man named Louis Peluso, who has informed the NBC Nightline programme that he is the real owner of Jane O'Brien Media.

With Schillaci also appearing to have recanted, it's feasible that the whole truth lies outside this film. The lawyers certainly don't seem to have finished with Farrier and Reeve and not even a supportive media groundswell will be much use to them if their opponents do decide to flex their monied muscles. As a consequence, it seems wisest to confine remarks to a recommendation to catch this fascinating, but inconclusive documentary if you possibly can and to an exhortation to somebody with clout in Hollywood to conduct a wider-ranging study of the subject of online anonymity and the kind of hate and harassment campaigns that the major communication conglommerates getting fat on social media sites should have addressed a long time ago.