Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 25/1/2018)

Seven months after her daughter Angela (Kathryn Newton) was raped, murdered and set alight, Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) becomes so frustrated by the lack of progress being made by Chief Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) that she rents three battered billboards on a quiet road outside Ebbing, Missouri from Red Welby (Caleb Landry Jones). Paying $5000 for the first month, Mildred has the boards painted red and emblazoned with the words: `Raped While Dying', `Still No Arrests' and `How Come, Chief Willoughby?'

Racist cop Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell) sees the posters on his rounds and calls Willoughby with the bad news on Easter Sunday. The following day, as Mildred drives son Robbie (Lucas Hedges) to school, she sees the furore she has caused, as Willoughby, Dixon and desk sergeant Cedric Connoly (Željko Ivanek) try to intimidate Welby into taking the billboards down. Any hopes they have that the story might blow over are dashed when Mildred goes on the local news and accuses the cops of devoting more time to beating up black folks than investigating her daughter's murder.

Willoughby pays Mildred a visit and explains that the case is tricky because none of the DNA samples can be matched on the national computer and he has no other obvious clues to follow up. He reminds her that civil rights prevent some of the more extreme methods that she is suggesting before revealing that he is dying of pancreatic cancer. Rather than showing any sympathy, however, Mildred admits that the poster won't be as effective after he croaks, but she still feels she will get value for money. She proves equally curt to Dixon when she finds him threatening Welby during a game of pool at the local bar and rips into Father Montmorency (Nick Searcy) when he calls to let her know that his parishioners feel affronted by the aggressive tone of her campaign. Undaunted, Mildred compares the culpability of Crips and Bloods gang members with those Catholics who say nothing about abusive priests and orders him to leave, much to the embarrassment of her son.

The next day, Willoughby and Dixon come to the gift shop where Mildred works with Denise (Amanda Warren) to arrest her for drilling a hole in the thumbnail of Geoffrey the dentist (Jerry Winsett), who has lodged an official complaint about the billboards. While waiting to be questioned, Mildred taunts Dixon about his bigoted thuggery and he complains that his mother (Sandy Martin) had to watch those allegations on the news. He barely keeps his temper and Willoughby sends him outside while he asks Mildred why she attacked Geoffrey. She says it's his word against hers, as it often is in rape cases and Willoughby implores her to have a civil conversation. He admits he would like to tie her up in a law suit that would prevent her earning the money to pay for the board rental, but he isn't that petty. Nevertheless, he goads her about having to sell a tractor belonging to her ex-husband, Charlie (John Hawkes), who left her for a much younger woman. Mildred is about to snap back when Willoughby coughs blood on her face and she consoles him before rushing to get help and he repays the favour by releasing her without charge.

As Willoughby jokes with his wife, Anne (Abbie Cornish) about refusing to stay in hospital overnight, Mildred drives home with Robbie. He is angry with her for putting up the billboards, as they ram home his sister's fate and make him feel depressed. Sitting on Angela's bed, Mildred recalls the row she had with her before she went out for the night and she bitterly regrets both the fact that they bickered all the time and that she had refused to lend her the car, so that Angela had to walk home alone.

Mildred feels nettled, therefore, when Charlie drops in a breakfast time to hector her about getting people's backs up. She needles him about his 19 year-old girlfriend, Penelope (Samara Weaving), and she comes in to use the bathroom in time to see Charlie attempting to throttle Mildred while Robbie holds a knife to his throat. Everyone calms down and Charlie reminds Mildred that he is also grieving. But, when she slams him for his chosen method, he blurts out that Angela had come to see him the week before she had died to ask if she could move in with him, as she could no longer stand living with her mother. Robbie pretends not to know if this is true, but Mildred can see right through him and is angrier with herself than ever before.

Thus, when Dixon follows his mother's suggestion of getting at Mildred by messing with her friends, she storms into the station to demand that he releases Denise on a trumped up marijuana possession charge. As Willoughby is having a picnic with Anne and their young daughters, Dixon decides to stand up for himself and feels a sense of achievement when Connoly congratulates him for not backing down. But Mildred has no intention of quitting and places some wooden planters beneath the billboards to brighten them up. While she works, a deer wanders towards her and she thanks it for trying to cheer her up. However, she explains that she doesn't believe in reincarnation or afterlifes and knows that Angela is gone forever. Yet, she gets an inkling that someone may be watching over her when Welby summons her to meet a late payment and his assistant, Pamela (Kerry Condon), wanders in with an envelope stuffed with bank bills and an anonymous note urging Mildred to keep up the fight.

Things are quite so bright for Willoughby, however. Having had a lovely day with his family, he puts his girls to bed and checks on Anne's Chardonnay hangover. She compliments him on his love-making beside the lake and jokes that such coarse remarks can be found in the plays of Oscar Wilde. He goes to feed his horses and proceeds to place a bag over his head and shoot himself. Anne discovers a note on the dining-room table and, as rushes out to see the horses grazing beside her husband's dead body, we hear how Willoughby wished to spare her the agony of seeing him slip away by leaving her with the happy memory of one last glorious day.

On hearing the news on TV the next morning, Mildred kicks the shins of two schoolkids who throw a can at her car windscreen, while the distraught Dixon storms into Welby's office and pistol whips him before tossing him out of a broken window into the street. He also punches Pamela in the face before returning to the station with a snarling threat to a black man on the pavement outside. However, he turns out to be Abercrombie (Clarke Peters), who has been sent to replace Willoughby and he orders Dixon to surrender his badge and gun before firing him. Trying to remain defiant, Dixon attempts to banter with Connoly, but he suggests he leaves without making a fuss.

Later that morning, Mildred is alone in the shop when a stranger (Brendan Sexton III) wanders in. He smashes a rabbit ornament and informs her that he was a close friend of Willoughby. She starts to offer her condolences when the man claims that he could also be the one who killed his daughter and he is in the process of wishing he had been when Anne comes into the store. She hands over a letter that her husband had left for Mildred and promises that she doesn't blame her for what has happened. But, as she points to her daughters waiting in the car outside, Anne makes it clear that she will never forgive her for adding to Willoughby's woes in his final days.

In fact, he has nothing but praise for Mildred and apologises for having made insufficient progress in the case. He also reveals that he paid for the billboards, as he thinks they are a good idea and he genuinely hopes that they help in flushing out the perpetrator. She smiles sadly, as a long, slow train passes the shop and she ponders her next move. This is decided for her, however, when she sees the billboards ablaze, as she drives home with Robbie. She sends him to fetch another fire extinguisher, as she tries to fight the flames and clambers up the ladder at the side of the middle board to aim the nozzle. Abercrombie arrives on the scene, but Mildred is in no mood to chat.

Dixon feigns to know nothing about the arson attack when his mother quizzes him the next morning. But, when Connoly calls to let him know that Willoughby left him a letter, he agrees to drop into the station after hours to collect it. As he reads about his former boss having faith in his decency and his determination to become a detective, Dixon fails to hear Mildred throwing Molotov cocktails through the broken windows of Welby's office and it's only when one nearly hits him that he realises he is in danger. Grabbing Angela's file off the desk, he jumps to safety and Welby's passing pal. James (Peter Dinklage) uses his jacket to beat out the flames.

Appalled to see that there was someone in the darkened station, Mildred hangs around to watch the fire crew tackle the blaze and she is grateful when James gives her an alibi by saying they were on a date when Abercrombie asks what she was doing there. Meanwhile, the heavily bandaged Dixon finds himself sharing a hospital room with Welby and tries to apologise for throwing him out of his office window. Welby is dismayed to discover the identity of his roommate, but he pours him a cup of orange juice and gives him a straw.

Shortly afterwards, bill-sticker Jerome (Darrell Britt-Gibson) gives Mildred a spare set of posters and earns himself a date with the newly released Denise. James helps Mildred and Robbie repair the billboards and they agree to use the one naming Willoughby as a tribute to the man who paid for it. That night, Jerome and Denise go for a drink in a bar, where Dixon is drowning his sorrows. He eavesdrops on the conversation in the neighbouring booth and realises that the stranger who had confronted Mildred in the gift shop is boasting to his buddy about raping Angela. Dixon slips outside to note his licence plate and then picks a fight so that he can get a DNA sample by scratching the man's face. He takes a whooping and staggers home to store his evidence in a sealed tube before cleaning himself up.

Across town, Mildred has her date with James. However, Charlie arrives with Penelope and can't resist coming to the table to taunt her about going out with a dwarf. He lets slip that he torched the billboards when drunk and returns to his table, leaving Mildred to hurt James's feelings and provoke him into an outburst in which he loudly mentions the police station fire. Picking up the wine bottle, Mildred goes over to Charlie with the intention of clobbering him. But she is disarmed by Penelope's bubble-headed sweetness and cautions him to take care of her, as she is far too good for him.

The next morning, Dixon comes to the house to let Mildred know about his tussle. She is grateful to him and dares to hope that her nightmare might be over. However, while Abercrombie commends Dixon on his quick thinking, he doesn't invite him to rejoin the force and breaks the news that the stranger had nothing to do with Angela's death. Indeed, he was out of the country with the military at the time and Dixon is too insular to guess where he might have been serving. However, as he prepares to blow his brains out with a shotgun, he calls Mildred to fill her in. He mentions his certainty that the guy is a rapist and they make arrangements to drive to his place in Idaho. As they hit the road, Mildred confesses to fire-bombing the police station, but Dixon is neither surprised nor concerned. However, he admits to having misgivings about killing the stranger and, as the scene fades to black, Mildred suggests they see how they feel when they get there.

Impeccably designed by Inbal Weinberg, photographed by Ben Davis and edited by the Oscar-nominated Jon Gregory, this is a troublingly nuanced snapshot of Trump's America. There are loud echoes of the Sheriff Joe Arpaio case in the depiction of Jason Dixon, while the denunciation of the complicit patriarchy has acquired added significance since the breaking of the sexual harassment scandal. But McDonagh takes a leaf out of Jean Renoir's book in revealing that everyone has their reasons for their attitudes and antics. He demonstrates this with particular finesse during the passage in which Mildred communes with the docile doe and Willoughby instructs his daughters (the delightful Riya May and Selah Atwood) in the rules of the cuddly toy fishing game designed to confine them to a blanket on the shore while their parents sneak off to make love. Indeed, in a film of many poignant images, the shot of the teddy bear on its side in the shallow water after Willoughby commits suicide is the most excruciatingly indelible.

There's a danger that the equally excellent Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell will take votes off each other when it comes to the Best Supporting Actor award (although Rockwell may suffer because Dixon's redemption comes without him renouncing his pernicious racism). But Frances McDormand must be a shoo-in for Best Actress, as she is outstanding as the gloweringly inconsolable mother seeking to assuage her own guilt by finding somebody else to blame for her rebellious daughter's brutal demise. As for McDonagh being nominated for his script and not his direction, this seems more than a little harsh, as he not only judges the tonal shifts between intense drama and bleak humour to a tee, but he also plays with audience expectation with consummate skill, as he keeps taking the plot in unexpected directions while drawing them into the private lives of the principals. Rarely have sorrow and fury been pitted together with such potency and compassion.

The flashback to show Angela being less than angelic could be considered a misstep, as it's rather on the nose, while the sequence in which Mildred puts on voices to natter to her bunny slippers feels a touch strained. Carter Burwell's score also occasionally overreaches and isn't always as effective as such soundtrack selections as Renée Fleming's rendition of `The Last Rose of Summer', Joan Baez's `The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down' and Amy Annelle's `Buckskin Stallion Blues'. But McDonagh's dialogue is curt and tart and it's delivered with evident relish by the estimable ensemble, who ensure that Ebbing could be paired with Twin Peaks.

There seems to be no escaping Winston Churchill at the moment. Following on from portrayals by John Lithgow in The Crown (2016-), Michael Gambon in Churchill's Secret (2016) and Brian Cox in Jonathan Teplitzky's biopic, Churchill (2017), Gary Oldman takes a tilt at the role of Britain's most iconic prime minister in Joe Wright's Darkest Hour. Buried beneath Kazuhiro Tsuji's imposing prosthetics, Oldman embodies the bulldog spirit of resistance that Christopher Nolan ensured had coursed through his momentous epic, Dunkirk (2017), which was also set during the spring of 1940. But, rather than recycling the tics and traits used by the likes of Richard Burton, Albert Finney, Brendan Gleason and Robert Hardy (seven times) in playing the Blenheim-born premier, Oldman eschews mimicry to capture the contradictions of a public colossus who was privately beset by self-doubt and the black dog of depression.

Following newsreel footage showing the might of the German war machine on 9 May 1940, captions inform us that Adolf Hitler has conquered Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark and Norway and has three million troops massed on the Belgian border. In Britain, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup) is harangued in the House of Commons by Labour leader Clement Attlee (David Schofield) under the mournful gaze of Foreign Secretary Edward Wood, 3rd Viscount Halifax (Stephen Dillane). But, while Chamberlain (who is suffering from terminal cancer) is prepared to step down, Halifax resists Conservative Party efforts to sweep him into 10 Downing Street by insisting that the country's best hope is the notoriously irascible and unpredictable First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman).

He first appears in a flash of light, as he smokes a cigar in his Chartwell bedroom and terrorises new secretary Elizabeth Layton (Lily James) while dictating letters between telephone calls and gulps of his breakfast whiskey. On hearing the news that the Wehrmacht has crossed into Holland and Belgium, Churchill is in no mood to be hindered by error-strewn, single-spaced typing and has to be reminded by his long-suffering wife, Clementine (Kristin Scott Thomas), that he will have to be kinder if he is to assume high office. So, when Layton accepts a telegram on fleeing after a glimpse of the Churchillian undercarriage as he clambered out of bed in his nightshirt, he remembers to thank her with a twinkle in his eye.

Despite summoning Churchill to Buckingham Palace, King George VI (Ben Mendelsohn) is far from enthralled by the prospect of working with a man who had actively encouraged his brother, then Edward VIII, to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson in 1936. He also reminds Chamberlain of Churchill's chequered record in government before thanking him for his efforts and lamenting the vehemence of the criticism he has faced for trying to buy the nation time in appeasing Hitler and for exploring the possibility of enlisting the aid of Italian leader, Benito Mussolini, to sue for an honourable peace. By contrast, his first encounter with Churchill is abruptly business-like, as the new PM kisses hands and seeks to ensure that his weekly meeting with the monarch doesn't interfere with his mealtimes and naps.

Toasted `not to bugger it up' by his family at Number 10, Churchill selects his coalition cabinet with the aid of Anthony Eden (Samuel West). On 13 May, he addresses the Commons and, in offering his blood, toil, tears and sweat, he vows to wage war at any cost and Chamberlain's evident disapproval is reflected by the uneasy silence at the end of what had been intended as a rallying cry. Meeting in a nearby park, Chamberlain and Halifax plot a way of removing Churchill through a vote of no confidence, as they are convinced that Britain is ill-prepared to fight a rearguard. At the Cabinet War Rooms, Major-General Hastings Ismay (Richard Lumsden), General Sir Edmund Ironside (Malcolm Storry), Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding (Adrian Rawlins) and Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay (David Bamber) are equally concerned that Britain lacks the resources to resist a Nazi invasion, while French premier Édouard Daladier (Mario Hacquard) is baffled by Churchill's suggestion that the breach of the Maginot Line is an opening gambit rather than a decisive blow.

While flying to France for this summit (as he had when driving along Whitehall to Downing Street), Churchill becomes conscious of the ordinary people going about their everyday activities without a real understanding of the peril they face. But others believe the only way to protect the populace is to sue for peace and Halifax meets with George VI to keep him up to date with the rumblings in the corridors of power about Churchill being a drunken loose cannon who could do irreparable damage in his vainglorious bid to secure his historical legacy. Eden advises him against going on the offensive in a BBC speech on 19 May, but he goes his own way and receives a royal reprimand in the process. He is also informed by Layton that he is doing his V for Victory sign the wrong way round.

By 25 May, news comes that the British Expeditionary Force is at risk of being trapped at Dunkirk and Halifax opposes Churchill's plan to use a detachment at Calais to draw fire to allow 300,000 men to be rescued from the beaches. As the rest of the cabinet leave, Chamberlain and Halifax entreat Churchill to consider the Italian peace option rather than leave the country demoralised and defenceless against a Nazi advance. But the thought of compromising with a tyrant is an anathema and Churchill locks himself in the lavatory to weigh up his options. These are narrowed during a telephone conversation with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (David Strathairn), whose hands are tied by the terms of the Neutrality Act and can only offer to deposit some aircraft close to the Canadian border so that they can be pulled into imperial territory by horses. So, Churchill emerges with his plan to assemble an armada of civilian boats and orders Ramsay to make the arrangements.

The following day, he announces his decision to the cabinet and Halifax again urges him to exploit his Italian contacts in a bid to secure a peace. But Churchill is adamant that this will only delay the inevitable and conveys this impression to George VI over lunch. The king asks how he can drink so much during the day and Churchill concedes it takes practice. He also advises George to remain in London rather than seeking sanctuary in Canada and further shows his human side in explaining Operation Dynamo to Layton using the War Rooms maps. She sheds a tear at the thought of the men who will pay the ultimate sacrifice to ensure the evacuation of their comrades and we join Brigadier Claude Nicholson (Richard Glover) in the stronghold at Calais, as he reads the orders to fight to the death.

On learning that Belgium is about to surrender on 27 May, however, Churchill attends a cabinet meeting with growing doubts, especially when he hears of plans for a German invasion using fast motor launches and discovers how few small ships have been volunteered for his proposed rescue mission. Thus, when Halifax and Chamberlain make a final plea for him to consider accepting Italy's invitation to mediate, Churchill agrees to preparations being made. Working late into the night, he attempts to dictate a speech, but Layton has difficulty following his train of thought. As they take a break, he learns that she has lost a brother in combat. Shortly after Clementine encourages him to trust his instintcs, he receives a visit from George VI, who has decided to stay in the capital and support Churchill in whatever plan he adopts. Without ruling out peace proposals, however, he suggests that Churchill puts the unvarnished facts to the people and is guided by their response, as he has often found that they are wiser than their rulers give them credit for.

As dawn breaks, Churchill learns from Ramsay that enough boats have been registered to attempt a rescue. As he drives to Whitehall through the rain and looks out at Londoners scurrying around in slow-motion, Churchill discovers he has no matches for his cigar and jumps out of the car at some traffic lights. Before the chauffeur can stop him, he barrels into the nearest Underground station and takes the next train to Westminster. His fellow passengers are astonished to see him, but they begin to introduce themselves and Churchill asks them whether they would rather go cap in hand and plead for peace or make a stand. Buoyed by what he hears, he goes to Parliament and confides what he has heard to members of his outer cabinet and anyone else willing to listen. Further emboldened by their cheering endorsement, he tells the cabinet that he intends to fight on and recommends that Halifax follows his conscience if he disagrees with the decision.

Chamberlain suggests that they wait to hear what Churchill has to say before forcing a vote of no confidence and Halifax takes his place in the Strangers' Gallery with some trepidation. Clutching a speech hurriedly dictated to Layton in the car, Churchill places his faith in the ordinary men and women of these islands to do their duty and fight the foe on the beaches until victory is won. Much to Halifax's chagrin, Chamberlain gives his assent to the proposal and the Tories join those on the Opposition benches in bellowing their assent and Churchill strides out of the chamber through a blizzard of floating order papers.

Closing captions reveal that Chamberlain would die six months later, while Halifax would become British Ambassador to the United States. Despite leading his country to victory, Churchill was ousted from office in the General Election of 1945. Yet he continued to place more value on having the courage to continue than on winning or losing and one is left wondering whether this is the message that Brexit-era Brits are supposed to take away from this engrossing, if not always wholly convincing reconstruction.

Screenwriter Anthony McCarten seems to have taken his cue from Mark Hayhurst's excellent script for Justin Hardy's BBC series, 37 Days (2014), which followed the efforts of Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey to prevent the outbreak of the Great War. Nicolas Asbury got to play Churchill in this meticulous chronicle of Grey's diplomatic endeavours, which stoutly refused to dumb down a complex situation and McCarten admirably follows suit until he inserts the entirely fictitious encounter with folks of various ages, races and classes on the Tube. Although it enables the audience to gauge the mood of the people and show that Churchill was not merely an egotistical maverick swimming against the tide, this sequence undermines the authenticity of what has gone before, even though McCarten and Wright frequently take liberties with their depiction of the ever-thirsty Churchill's domestic routines.

Such humanising gambits pay handsomely, however, as they allow Gary Oldman to inject a little roguish humour into a performance that is all the better for not being larger than life. His Churchill is a flawed individual with a distinctly modest record in office, whose elevation was an enormous risk. Yet, even though his conviction and energy are to prove crucial to Britain surviving in order to prevail, McCarten wisely avoids demonising Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, who acted from the noblest of intentions before and after the infamous 1938 Munich Agreement that has led many to denounce them as guilty men. He somewhat mischievously gives credit to Clement Attlee for recognising the Churchillian merits that George VI took time to discern. But there is little evident revisionism in an eloquent script that laudably seeks to demonstrate the onerousness of the responsibilities that come with great power.

Ably abetted by a strong supporting cast (with Ronald Pickup doing particularly well as a replacement for the late John Hurt), Oldman seems likely to add an Oscar to his abundant awards haul. Production designer Sarah Hammond, costumier Jacqueline Durran and cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel also deserve their nominations, as does Kazuhiro Tsuji, whose make-up is so wonderfully natural that it feels as though Oldman had bulked up for the role. But Joe Wright was rightfully overlooked for Best Director, as there is an intrusive fussiness about the shot taken from inside Lily James's typewriter, the bathing of one speech in the glow of the red radio transmission light, and the transition from a piece of bombed land to the body of a fallen soldier. He might also have used a little more understatement and done more to tone down Dario Marianelli's often studied score. Nevertheless, he makes evocative use of the impeccably recreated Commons chamber and the Cabinet War Rooms and resists the temptation to overuse the walk-and-talk technique that has become a cliché of the political drama.

More might have been done to contrast the public's detached Phoney War mood with the desperate plight of the BEF stranded in northern France, while greater emphasis should have been placed on the pace of rearmament and the state of the defences that were in place to resist an invasion. But Wright is less interested in giving viewers a history lesson than in showing how greatness is forged in the furnace of a crisis. Consequently, this might work best as part of a double bill with Dunkirk, which, of course, didn't feature Churchill at all, or even a triple bill with Wright's admirable adaptation of Ian McEwan's Atonement (2007), whose exceptional long take across the troop-strewn beach remains his finest achievement.

In 1973, Hal Ashby created one of the seminal works of the New Hollywood era in adapting Darryl Ponicsan's novel, The Last Detail. Following sailors Jack Nicholson and Otis Young as they escort thief Randy Quaid from Washington to the brig in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, this freewheeling road movie encapsulated American cinema's sense of post-Production Code freedom in exploring the military mindset and the mood of the nation as the Vietnam War dragged on towards ignominious defeat. Now, Richard Linklater has teamed up with Poniscan to produce Last Flag Flying, a melancholic postscript to the earlier picture that lacks its acerbity and authenticity, as it joins three old comrades in a reunion that struggles to achieve the right balance between sincerity and convolution.

In the winter of 2003, Steve Carell turns up at the backstreet bar in Norfolk, Virginia run by old service buddy, Bryan Cranston. They haven't seen each other since Carell was slammed in a US Navy prison and dismissed on a bad conduct charge. However, they drink through the night and, the next morning, drive to the Baptist church where old mucker Laurence Fishburne is now the pastor. A former Marine with a tendency to say what he feels, Cranston makes their presence known during a sermon and accepts an invitation to lunch from Fishburne's prim wife, Deanna Reed-Foster. During the meal, it's revealed that Carell has not only just lost his wife to breast cancer, but his 21 year-old son has also been killed in Iraq and he asks Cranston and Fishburne to accompany him to Washington DC to collect the body and attend the planned funeral at Arlington National Cemetery.

Despite this being an odd request - given that the men had not seen each other for three decades before Carell tracked them down on the Internet - Cranston and Fishburne agree to stand by the friend they feel they had let down during his moment of crisis in `Nam. Cranston is amused when Fishburne (who walks with a stick) lets his pious façade slip while jousting with a juggernaut on the freeway and he takes delight in reminding him that he was nicknamed `The Mauler' because of his fondness for prostitutes. Fishburne acknowledges that this was a dark period in his life and that he has since reformed. But he still knows his way around a swear word and he is less than amused when they arrive at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware (via a detour to Arlington) and have to spend the night in a motel, where they see on the news that Saddam Hussein has been found in a spider hole.

Arriving in a vast hangar to see a line of flag-draped coffins, Carell is greeted by Lieutenant Colonel Yul Vazquez, who assures him that his son had been a hero who had died in the line of duty. However, as he insists on seeing the body, Lance Corporal J. Quinton Johnson lets slip to Cranston and Fishburne that his buddy had been shot in the back of the head while shopping after a mission to deliver school supplies. Cranston feels that Carell should know the truth and he feels sufficiently betrayed by the government trying to make a hero out of his body that he decides to bury him at home, alongside his mother. Cranston offers to rent a van to take the casket to Portsmouth, but Fishburne insists on taking the bus back to his parish and bids Carell a dignified farewell.

Driving to the U-Haul depot, Fishburne asks Cranston (who was invalided out of the Corps with a metal plate in his head) whether he feels guilty about his part in the scandal that resulted in Carell being jailed. As a comrade had been left to die in agony because the morphine supply had been depleted, Cranston admits to having regrets. But he feels time is ticking on his life and that he would rather look forward than back. At the van hire, Cranston arouses the suspicions of desk clerk Jane Mowder, who convinces herself that Fishburne is a Muslim cleric and he is detained at the bus station by Homeland Security. Cranston and Carell are pulled over by the cops and the trio wind up back in their motel, with Fishburne furious that he had to call Reed-Foster and explain that he had been arrested.

The following morning, Yazquez makes another attempt to persuade Carell to bury his son with honours in Arlington. But he insists he will take him to Portsmouth by train and replace his uniform with his graduation suit before laying him beside his mother. Unable to stop him, Yazquez details Johnson to accompany the coffin and ensure that his friend is treated like a Marine and not a daddy's boy. Entrusting the cargo to guard Graham Wolfe, Johnson comes to sit with Carell, Fishburne and Cranston and tries to apologise for not taking his turn to fetch the Cokes on the day of the ambush. But Carell urges him to live without regret, as they discuss his tours of duty and the fact that he is used to sudden death after being raised without a father in Oakand. He reassures Carell that his son had been doing a job he loved and that he only spoke well about his folks.

Sitting in the baggage car, the veterans tells Johnson about their misadventures in the red light district known as `Disneyland' and Carell gets the giggles when Cranston informs them of the effects of gravity on his ageing genitals. Arriving in New York, they go in search of an Irish bar and buy mobile phones, only to discover that they have missed their train and have to spend the night on the Pennsylvania Station concourse. Over supper at a diner, Cranston reveals that he has looked up the mother of the friend who had died in Vietnam and hints that they should pay her a call out of respect. But Carell suggests they should let sleeping dogs lie, as her son would never have been killed if they had been doing their jobs. Nevertheless, they make the detour, but are so touched by Cicely Tyson's reaction to meeting some of the men her boy saved through his heroism that they don't have the heart to tell her the truth.

Following a discussion about how Fishburne found God and Reed-Foster, the train reaches its destination and Cranston notes how rundown the town looks now that its factories have closed. While Fishburne takes the spare room and Johnson kips on the couch, Carell gives Cranston the master bed and sleeps on a mattress on the floor. As they chat, Cranston urges Carell to quit his job at the Navy supply store and become his partner in running the bar. He promises to think about it and, the next morning, agrees to bury his boy in his uniform, as he had earned the privilege by stepping up when his country needed him. Cranston and Fishburne also magic up some uniforms to perform the flag ceremony at the graveside and are there when Carell reads a letter from his son, in which he states his pride at being a Marine and requests to be buried in his uniform beside his mom.

The sympathetic pat on the shoulder from Cranston to Carell as the scene fades sums up the low-key approach that Linklater, cinematographer Shane F. Kelly and composer Graham Reynolds take to this epic journey. But, while Linklater resists cheap sentiment and patriotism, he also struggles to prevent this worthy drama from seeming like a piece of Masterpiece Theatre. Good though they are, the leads always seem to be acting rather than inhabiting their characters. But this is less their fault than that of Linklater and Ponicsan, who have fashioned convenient ciphers to fit a scenario designed to highlight certain issues in modern America.

Paramount are discussions about the difference between brotherhood and esprit de corps and the population's continuing faith in an establishment that persistently dissembles and stage manages in order to prevent ordinary, trusting people from discovering the misdeeds that are being perpetrated in their name. The latter would be a laudable topic were it not presented with a similar degree of didactic calculation that seeks to let folks feel good about themselves, if not the elected representatives who have led them into conflicts they didn't really understand.

For decades, any discussion of Portuguese cinema has been dominated by the names of Manoel De Oliveira, João César Monteiro and Pedro Costa. However, the emergence of Miguel Gomes has given Lusophone film a welcome shot in the arm and documentarist Pedro Pinho takes cues from Gomes's exceptional Arabian Nights trilogy (2015) in making The Nothing Factory, an epic blend of agit-prop and avant-garde tropes that deserves to take its place in a surprisingly small canon of classic films about industrial relations that includes Sergei Eisenstein's Strike (1924), Jean-Luc Godard's Tout va bien, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's miniseries Eight Hours Don't Make a Day (both 1972), Martin Ritt's Norma Rae (1979) and Michele Placido's Seven Minutes (2016), as well as such British offerings as John Boulting's I'm Alright Jack (1950), Guy Green's The Angry Silence (1960), Gerald Thomas's Carry On At Your Convenience (1971) and Nigel Cole's Made in Dagenham (2010).

The film that The Nothing Factory most resembles, however, is Bernard Miles's Chance of a Lifetime (1950), which chronicles the efforts of the workforce at a plant making agricultural machinery to take over the day-to-day running of the business from its failing bosses. Scripted by Miles and novelist Walter Greenwood, this premise caused such a furore that the Ministry of Labour and the British Employers Confederation petitioned Clement Attlee's government to have the picture suppressed. Fortunately, Harold Wilson, who was President of the Board of Trade, felt that it wouldn't damage management-worker relations and used the 1948 Film Act to ensure that it was seen by the widest possible audience. Pinho can't hope for such high-level intervention, however, and those intrigued by this compelling three-hour docurealist enterprise will have to make their way to The ICA in London to see it.

Following shots of the production line at the Fortileva elevator factory on the outskirts of Lisbon, we see machinist Zé (José Smith Vargas) leaving Brazilian girlfriend Carla (Carla Galvão) in bed so that he can join his workmates in preventing a truck driver from removing vital equipment from the premises in the middle of the night. Ignoring protests that the driver is merely doing his job, the workers rescue one machine from the van and agree to mount a vigil to stop management from getting away with any more underhand gambits.

Yet, when Mr Arlindo arrives the next morning, he has no idea what has been going on and storms off the site after feeding his goldfish following an angry phone call. While the workers check what is missing, a female boss arrives to introduce Luis and Marta, who are respectively the new production engineer and human resources manager. She tries to explain that the global economic downturn has prompted a drop in demand for lifts and hopes that the staff can understand that a degree of restructuring is, therefore, inevitable. Sensing they are being softened up for redundancies, the workers protests and the manager threatens to call the police unless they leave. However, union official Vasconcelos urges them to keep a token presence inside the gate so that they can't be locked out again.

While Carla's son, Mowgli (Njamy Sebastiao), is shown how to skin rabbits by Zé's father, Joachim (Joachim Bichana Martins), Italian documentarist Daniele (Daniele Incalcaterra) scouts locations around Lisbon, while a female narrator explains how the European employment bubble has burst because of the recession and cheap migrant labour. Huddling around a brazier, Herminio (Herminio Amaro) and Sandra (Sandra Calhau) join the vigil force before the workers report for duty the next morning and have nothing to do other than stand beside their machines or sit at their desks in defiant, but despondent silence. Eventually, games of football and pitch and toss breakout, despite the foreman urging everyone to look busy. After a while, Marta emerges from her office and summons Carlos (Carlos Garrido Santos) to discuss his severance package. Herminio implores Ricardo (Ricardo Gonçalves) not to sign anything and, as Zé is called in, he breaks down in frustration at the fact that he is powerless to prevent his livelihood from being snatched away.

Such is Marta's determination to settle matters with as little fuss as possible, she pays a visit to the nail bar where Carla works in the hope of getting her to convince Zé to accept compensation while there is still money available. But tensions are mounting within the workforce and Herminio (who was browbeating Boris [Boris Martins Nunes] with Rui [Rui Ruivo] for taking blood money) finds himself having to deny that he has sold out when someone lists the payment offers on a whiteboard outside the changing-rooms. Boris joins Zé at the snack bar and informs him that he plans to go travelling rather than frittering his life away and Zé is too preoccupied with his pal's travails to respond when Daniele asks if there is any way he can get into the factory to make a film about the decline of organised labour.

Zé takes Mowgli fishing and they float on a raft on a grey afternoon, with the tweenager singing songs and questioning why clever fish would allow themselves to get caught when they could steal the bait and swim away. Back at the factory, Antonio is arguing with Rui about devising a plan of action, as they are simply occupying an empty shell unless they find a way of producing and selling lifts. Sandra is willing to stand firm, but admits that it is getting difficult to hear her three daughters complain of being hungry when she is being offered a sum that would help solve her problems. As the workmates bicker, Vasconcelos arrives with Daniele, who listens with interest, as the colleagues debate whether feeding a family counts for more than maintaining the dignity of labour.

Persuaded by Vasconcelos that they need to declare a strike to give a semblance of legality to the sit-in, the workers prevent Luis and Marta from entering the factory and explain the situation to the policemen who comes to investigate. The union lawyer intervenes to keep things calm and the workers resume their peaceful occupation. Carla supports Zé's stance, but she is getting tired of struggling and hints that she is thinking about moving back to Brazil, even though she has just started a new job as a hotel maid (with a friend who had jokingly advised her that the best way to spice up her relationship was to serve supper in sexy lingerie).

A deputation goes to the offices of the administrators, only to discover that they have moved out. Antonio (Antonio Cajado Santos) suggests that this eases the way for the workers to take control of the factory and start seeking orders. But, while Daniele reports back to the think tank sponsoring his film and tries to urge the strikers into discussing political topics rather than their domestic situations, an air of hesitancy descends, as the rebels contemplate their next move. While they ponder, Daniele attends a meeting of his sponsors and listens as various economists and academics debate the future of capitalism in an age of deindustrialisation and speculate about whether this represents a moment of catastrophe or opportunity. They struggle to achieve a consensus, although most agree that any system that rises up to replace capitalism will inevitably be based on class inequality because there will always be a division between those who supervise and those who produce.

Away from this lively, if rather arch conversation, the Fortileva saga rumbles on. Needing money, Zé goes to see Joachim in his shack on the Tagus waterfront. He takes his son by boat into the marshland, where he shows him a cache of machine-guns that he managed to save after the Carnation Revolution in 1974. Zé shakes his head in bemusement when his father offers the weapons to ensure the bigwigs show the workers some respect. But, as he returns to the boat, Zé is flummoxed by the sight of a pride of ostriches stalking around in the reeds. He lets off steam singing in a bar with his punk band. But Carla isn't impressed by his antics and leaves early. Zé goes for food with Daniele, who tries to convince him to follow the example of an Argentinian factory that had become a profit-sharing collective. However, Zé has his doubts that Povoa de Santa Iria is a hot bed of revolutionaries.

Returning home by first light, Zé clambers into bed to pleasure Carla. By the time he arrives at work, the workers are racing around the factory floor on palette trollies. But, they break into a song-and-dance routine when the secretary takesa call from a bossless factory in Argentina that needs 3000 tiltable elevators and will advance Fortileva enough money to buy materials and relaunch its machinery. One of the crew is dubious, but the others whisk him along in a musical interlude that feels like it has been imported from a neo-realist reworking of Stanley Donen and George Abbott's The Pajama Game (1957).

On getting home with Carla and Mowgli, Zé asks if it would be okay to go to the pub. But he is disappointed when Carla says she wants to sleep on her own from now on. He is still feeling sorry for himself, therefore, when a meeting about how to respond to the Argentine offer descends into confusion about what roles people are to take on and how much they are to be paid for doing them. After a while, Zé storms out and Daniele rushes after him, only for Zé to push him to the floor for trying to manipulate his mates to look good in front of his French intellectuals. He explains that his fellow workers are not budding entrepreneurs, but are have-nots who just want to become haves as quickly and painlessly as possible. They stroll through the empty docklands and Zé shouts out to ask the world what Povoa has done to deserve its fate. Walking home, he leaves his motorcycle at the side of the road and gets the bus into work the next day, as he clocks in at the start of what he hopes will not be `an ephemeral adventure'.

Inspired by the self-managing rearguard fought by the employees of the Otis factory in Portugal and a 1997 stage work by Dutch playwright Judith Herzberg, this sprawling anti-drama owes much to Pinho's documentary sensibility. Yet, while it has been photographed by Vasco Viana on a grainy 16mm stock that positively shrieks `gritty realism', there's nothing grim or worthy about his approach to the prevailing economic climate or the state of labour relations in at a time of mechanisation and migration. Indeed, there is none of the soapboxing that one has come to expect from Ken Loach and, mercifully, Pinho and co-writers Tiago Hespanha, Luisa Homem and Leonor Noivo also resists th temptation to sentimentalise the plight of the workforce and their families. However, in exploring the relationship between cinema and socialism, Pinho affords a touch too much latitude to didactic documentarist Daniele Incalcaterra, whose own 2004 film, FaSinPat, had centred on a worker-controlled ceramics factory in Argentina.

The largely non-professional cast wholly convinces, whether they are breaking into song or batting around provocative ideas in lively discussions that were improvised on the back of some extensive workshopping. The relationship between José Smith Vargas and young Njamy Sebastiao is touchingly portrayed and one is left wondering whether Carla Galvão will stay with Vargas for her son's benefit or give up on her European dream. Joachim Bichana Martins also catches the eye with his pent-up anger at the long-term failure of the Carnation Revolution and his unfazed reaction to the ostriches strutting along the riverbank. Not everyone is going to be beguiled by such left-field incidents. But this is a spirited exercise that is to be commended for its austerity, integrity and singleness of purpose.

First brought to television as an anime series in 2014, Sui Ishida's acclaimed manga Tokyo Ghoul gets the big-screen, live-action treatment in Kentaro Hagiwara's debut feature of the same name. Full of gore and knowing genre nods to keep the fanboy constituency happy, this Shochiku release is set in a present day in which ghouls pass unnoticed in the ordinary world. However, they tend to keep to their own kind, as whenever they feel the need to partake of human flesh, they develop tentacle-like organs known as `kagune' on their backs. In the original tele-show and its triptych of spin-offs, these transformations provided few challenges to the respective animation units. But Hagiwara is somewhat let down by the effects devised by Tomu Hyakutake and rendered in some decidedly dodgy computer-generated animation.

Despite the best efforts of the Comission of Counter Ghoul, Tokyoites are still being stalked by ravenous creatures who somehow manage to blend in with the general population. Consequently, bookish student Ken Kaneki (Masataka Kubota) has no idea that the seemingly innocent Rize Kamishiro (Yu Aoi) is less interested in his mind than his flavour when she accepts his invitation for a date. He gets the picture, however, when she sinks her fangs into his shoulder during a romantic nocturnal walk through the park and she stabs her kagune through his abdomen to hold him still while she feeds. But, while he is spared being devoured when a falling girder crushes the red-eyed Rize, he is forced to endure a fate worse than death when he becomes a demi-ghoul after receiving some of Rize's organs during a life-saving operation.

He gets an inkling of his predicament, however, when he goes for a celebration meal with best pal Hideyoshi Nagachika (Kai Ogasawara) and discovers that normal food tastes vile. As he tries to swallow the contents of his fridge while listening to a ghoul hunter on TV explaining the biology behind his loss of appetite, Ken imagines himself being attacked by Rize and, when he washes his face in the bathroom, he realises that one of his eyes has gone blood red. Staggering into the busy city, Ken smells flesh and promptly falls foul of Nishiki Nishio (Shunya Shiraishi), who accuses him of trespassing in his feeding ground. However, Ken is saved by Touka (Fumika Shimizu), a ghoul waitress who has long had her eyes on Ken and his friends. She despises Rize for stealing her prey and warns Ken to steer clear of Nishiki, who has little time for the Anteiku Code.

Her boss, Yoshimura (Kunio Marai), is more sympathetic, however, and notes that Ken is finding it difficult to adapt to his new condition. He informs him that coffee can hold hunger pangs at bay, but cautions him that he will need to eat human flesh in order to survive. But Ken can't bring himself to consume the cold cut that Yoshimura provides for him and he vows to continue with his old life. Covering his red eye with a patch, he hooks up with Hide at school, only to find that he has become involved with Nishiki, who recognises Ken from the alleyway. He kills Hide by slamming him into a table. But, just as he is about to take a bite, Ken unleashes his trident kagune and defeats Nishiki in an epic battle. As he licks the blood off Hide's face, however, Ken catches sight of himself in the mirror and sees Rize smirking back at him.

Ken is rescued from campus by Touka and Renji Yomo (Shuntaro Yanagi), who tidy up the room and take Hide to hospital before taking Ken back to the coffee shop. Yoshimura tells him that he is the only one who can dwell in both human and ghoul realms and offers him a job as a barista so he can learn to cope with his new reality. Here, he meets regular customer Ryoko Fueguchi (Shoko Aida) and her bashful daughter, Hinami (Hiyori Sakurada), who seeks solace in reading, as there are no other ghouls her age for her to befriend. He is also taken to meet Uta (Minosuke Bandô), who creates his ghoul mask, and accompanies Yomo on a body-collecting expedition to a well-known suicide spot.

Meanwhile, CCG agents Kotaro Amon (Nobuyuki Suzuki ) and Kureo Mado (Yo Oizumi) have become convinced that Ward 20 is the centre of Tokyo's ghoul community and are tracing dress fibres and a ring to find out more. Yoshimura realises that they are closing in on Ryoko and offers her sanctuary at the Anteiku until Yomo can find her new lodgings. Ken takes pity on Hinami when he accidentally blunders in on her eating and she feels ashamed of her nature. He also admires Touka, who bravely gobbles down a meal prepared for her by human friend, Yorkio Kosaka (Seika Foruhata), who doesn't suspect she is really a ghoul. So, Ken offers to help Hinami with her reading and to place some coffee beans on her father's grave. However, CCG rookie Ippei Kusaba (Tomoya Moeno) is snooping around the cemetery and reports back to base. Amon joins him at the graveside and digs up a box containing the mask worn by Ryoko's ghoul husband.

Armed with a quinque (a weapon made from a severed kagune), Amon and Mado corner Ryoko and Hinami when they leave for their new home in Ward 24. Desperate to save her child, who has feasted without killing, Ryoko orders Hinami to run away and she is found Ken. As they hide behind a car, however, they witness Ryoko perish in the driving rain and Ken notes the pleasure that the white-haired Mado took in slaying her. Touka asks permission to exact revenge and attacks Amon and Kusaba after they leave a restaurant (where is seems as though Amon finds human food distasteful). She wears a rabbit mask to protect her identity and succeeds in offing Kusaba before Mado arrives with his quinque to drive her away before she can throttle Amon. He has to witness Kusaba's mother identifying his body and Ken is equally distraught when he learns that Touka has been badly injured.

Seeking Yoshimura's permission, Ken takes a crash training course with the recovered Touka and a montage shows him gaining in strength and guile after some humiliating beatings. But we also see Mado planning to lure Hinami out of her safe house by using the scent of her mother's severed arm to bring her back to the spot beneath a railway bridge where she succumbed. He follows the child down to the river and warns Amon to keep an eye out for Touka and Ken, who have discovered that Hinami has slipped away. Touka takes on Mado, who is armed with a quinque made from Ryoko's kagune, while Ken overturns Amon's car and bites him in the neck during their tussle because he blames the CCG for demonising ghouls when they should be understood.

Mado revels in inflicting pain on Touka and is about to finish her off when Hinami grows her kagune and severs his arm. Touka tells her that this is the man who murdered her parents, but she fights the urge to kill and cries when Touka curses Mado for thinking that ghouls have no right to prey on humans when they are their only source of nourishment. She kills him with a flick of her kagune. But Ken is reluctant to take his first life and spares Amon after they come crashing down from a balcony during their showdown. A single tear drops on the dove agent's eye and, when he looks up, he finds he is alone on the upturned body of his car. He finds Mado's body and later lays flowers at his grave (now also wearing an eye patch). But the film ends positively (in a bid to set up a sequel) by showing Hide coming round in hospital and Ken accepting his new family at the coffee shop, with Touka and Himami.

Plunging the audience into the scenario with a cursory explanation that provides little contextualising background, this is one of those films that will delight admirers of Ishida's bestseller and leave newcomers baffle. Novice screenwriter Ichiro Kusuno is too preoccupied with packing in the busy storyline to bother with niceties like character psychology or development arc. Thus, Masataka Kubota goes from quivering wreck to cackling monster without any insight into his shifting mindset other than a sentimental attachment to Hiyori Sakurada because she's also a lonely bookworm. We also get no indication of why the conscience-stricken Nobuyuki Suzuki appears less gung-ho than his boss or why the silver-tressed Yo Oizumi is such a brooding oddball, as he opens his precious attaché cases to unleash the quinques, whose amputated powers are never explained.

For a first-timer, Kentaro Hagiwara directs the action sequences with plenty of panache, thanks to the contributions of cinematographer Satoru Karasawa, editors Yasuyuki Ozeki and Akira Takeda, and composer Don Davis. But he is less successful in reining in the scenery-gnawing tendencies of some of his players. Kubota is particularly hammy in his opening scenes, while Suzuki lurches between brooding intensity and sadistic ferocity. However, most post-screening discussion will centre on the shoddy CGI, the sudden disappearance of Yu Aoi after Kubota finds a home at the Anteiku, Fumika Shimizu's choice of a bunny mask, and why the citizens of Tokyo are not more terrified of the predators who regard them as items on a walking buffet.