Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 1/11/2018)

Lulu (Aubrey Plaza) works in the fast-food bar managed by her husband, Shane Danger (Emile Hirsch). However, when the area manager demands staff cutbacks, Shane fires Lulu and retains the services of hopeless underlings Carl Ronk (Sky Elobar) and Tyrone (Zach Cherry). At home, Lulu mocks Shane for having a smaller cashbox than her brother, Adjay Willis (Sam Dissanayake). So, he dons a blonde wig and some sunglasses to steal the box from Adjay's convenience store and makes a less than speedy getaway. 

Having recognised his brother-in-law, Adjay sends Colin Keith Threadener (Jemaine Clement) to recover his property. However, Lulu has seen a TV commercial for an evening's entertainment with Beverly Luff Linn (Craig Robinson), who just happens to have been her boyfriend before she met Shane. So, when Colin comes to the house to collect the box, Lulu grabs his gun and forces him to drive her to the Morehouse Hotel, where Beverly is due to perform for `one magical night'.

Receptionist Lawrence Doggi (Jacob Wysocki) gives Lulu and Colin a twin room and she asks her Antipodean accomplice to give her a massage and protect her from her desperate pursuers. Colin claims he does this sort of thing for a living and she feels safe in his care. However, she dislikes the way he gets food stuck in his moustache and is reluctant when he suggests that they sit with Beverly and Rodney at the hotel bar. The former recognises Lulu, who had barely been able to control herself while watching him swim in the heated pool. But he only communicates through grunts and Rodney is too busy explaining the nature of their platonic partnership to notice that Lulu's eyes have welled with tears and that Beverly has become so agitated at seeing her again that he has a severe attack of wind. 

Deciding to postpone the show for a night, Rodney puts Beverly to bed after catching him writing a letter. Meanwhile, Shane has found a box of keepsakes in Lulu's underwear drawer and recognises Beverly in several snapshots. He goes to the Morehouse in search of his wife, but she refuses to have anything to do with him. Instead, she goes to dinner with Colin, who tells an interminable story about how his grandmother had used sweets to potty train him. As they return to the room, Lawrence delivers a letter from Beverly asking Lulu to meet him by the pool. She slips away from the sleeping Colin, only for Rodney to swim towards her wearing clown make-up and he warns her to stay away from his partner. 

The next morning, Lulu asks Lawrence to hand deliver a message to Beverly, but hotel manager Kennedy Gordon (John Kerry) gives it to him at breakfast and Rodney is immediately suspicious. He sends Beverly to the gym to get ready for his performance and Lulu gets angry with Colin when he reveals that he flipped him the finger through the window. Meanwhile, Adjay comes to the diner with a henchman, who punches Shane in the nose for failing to recover the money. 

Rodney informs Kennedy that he will need to delay the show for another night and Lulu snaps at Colin when he tries to cheer her up in the bar. When she retires to bed, Colin gets chatting to Paulette (Bettina Devin), who likes the anecdotes that Lulu finds so dull and they have sex in the laundry room. However, she turns out to be a prostitute and charges him $50 for the privilege.

Having no filter, Colin tells Lulu that Paulette had given him a discount to lose his virginity. But she is not interested, as she is annoyed at having seen Beverly's ex-wife (Maria Bamford) in the lobby. She had been summoned by Rodney in the hope her presence would calm Beverly down. But he is less than pleased to see her and growls as he watches her drive away. However, he is committed to going ahead with the show and responds positively when Rodney tells him how much he loves him and how magical the night is going to be. 

In their room, Lulu tells Colin that Beverly had been her tutor and that she had fallen in love with his poetry. However, during a dream holiday to an island full of exotic birds, he had disappeared while swimming and she had always presumed he had drowned. Thus, when she learned he was alive, she had to come and see him perform and Colin is hurt by the passion of her story because he has developed a crush on her that seems destined to be unrequited. 

He reserves seats on the front row, as Shane and Carl arrive in their wigs to sit at the back of the auditorium, while Tyrone sneaks up to Lulu's room with Hilda the waitress (Kirsten Krieg) to steal back Adjay's cashbox. Kennedy welcomes the audience and Rodney takes to the stage with six small children to form a guard of honour for Beverly, who arrives wearing a green tartan costume and a tam o' shanter. He takes his seat and launches into a couple of twee ditties that reduce Lulu to a quivering wreck. Speaking normally, Beverly explains that he met Rodney in Aberdeen and they formed a close bond. But he will always be in love with Lulu and pauses to wish her happy birthday. 

At that moment, Shane runs forward with a cake and Rodney gets so cross that the show has been interrupted that a fight breaks out with Carl, Shane, Rodney and the show's diminutive producer, Mitch Shemp (Michael D. Cohen). During the melee, Beverly slips away and Lulu follows him back to his room to demand an explanation for his disappearance. He insists he had to break away from her and she is crestfallen. But Colin isn't satisfied with the story because he knows Lulu will never have feelings for him while she is still besotted with Beverly.  

He goes to the bar where The Captain (Bruce Paz) makes him a special cocktail. Lulu comes to join him and they dance wildly to White Lion's `Love Don't Come Easy' before returning to their room. Lulu dozes off while Colin is readying himself in the bathroom, so he covers her up and climbs into his own bed. As he turns off the light, however, Lulu tells him that she loves him and he replies in kind. The following morning, Rodney thinks Beverly has died in the passenger seat when they stop for snacks at a petrol station. But he is only in a deep sleep and the pair drive off into the sunrise chortling happily. 

Scripted by Hosking and David Wike, this shaggy dog story is more intent on amusing than its predecessor, which set out to shock and provoke. However, the deadpan delivery style returns along with the blend of absurdity and stylisation that sets Hosking's films apart. A lot of gags fall flat and there are stretches when the action becomes becalmed, particularly when the focus returns to Shane and his oppos. But this meanders along to its own rhythms, which are cannily counterpointed by Andrew Hung's left-field score and the accompanying soundtrack choices. 

Much depends on the commitment of the cast and Aubrey Plaza and Jemaine Clement make an unconventionally sweet pair, while Matt Berry and Craig Robinson achieve a cockeyed chemistry that relies heavily on Berry's genius for the offbeat and the grunting Robinson's eloquent expressions. Emile Hirsch hams up a treat as the hapless husband, although some of the support playing is markedly less accomplished. Clearly Hosking has watched a lot of early David Lynch and the complete works of John Waters. But he has created his own milieu, in conjunction with Jason Kisvarday, who also served as production designer on The Greasy Strangler. Nanu Segal is also on the same wavelength, as she keeps the camerawork simple, but luxuriant to make the most of the 1970s-inflected interiors and Christina Blackaller's quirkily coloured costumes. 

At one point, Colin tells Lulu, `Although I don't know what what's going on here, I'm having a great time.' Not everyone in the audience is going to agree with him. For all his Marmite qualities, however, Hosking's aesthetic and wit are too distinctive to ignore. Thus, he can be excused the tiresome fart and coughing gags and the surfeit of longueurs. But much will depend on what he does next time out.

Ventriloquist's dolls have been putting the wind up movie audiences ever since Otto took control of Erich von Stroheim in James Cruze's The Great Gabbo (1929). Michael Redgrave similarly fell foul of Hugo in Ealing's classic horror portmanteau, Dead of Night (1945), while Anthony Hopkins fought a losing battle with Fats in Richard Attenborough's Magic (1945). But there's something extra malevolent about the eponymous puppet in Matthew Holness's feature bow, Possum. 

Echoes of the films of Pete Walker and Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected reverberate through this dicomfiting chiller, which is markedly different in tone to Holness's cult TV series, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (2004). But it also takes more obvious inspiration from David Cronenberg's Spider (2002) and Jennifer Kent's The Babadook (2014).

As we hear Philip (Sean Harris) reciting an eerie children's poem on the soundtrack, we see him in a wood with a brown leather bag surrounded by the tentacle-like branches of a tree. He carries a similar bag on the train taking back to his childhood home in Norfolk, but he is spurned when he tries to take an interest in what schoolboy Michael (Charlie Eales) is drawing in his exercise book. 

Arriving at the bleak and long-empty property, Philip leaves his bag on the drab hall carpet while he goes upstairs. He sees a spray of yellow balloons on the landing, but misses the black smoke that appears to envelope them, as he wanders into a bedroom and thumbs through an old notebook full of drawings and poems about a creature named `Possum', which he unearths from beneath a floorboard. When he descends the stairs, the bag has been moved into an adjoining room and Philip wonders whether Maurice (Alun Armstrong) is around. But he is quite alone and ventures into the garden to dig up another brown leader holdall from underneath a metal bin.

Leaving the bag by the back door, Philip finds Maurice at the kitchen table and he mutters something about an old teaching friend writing to tell him about a performance that had landed him in trouble. Philip doesn't want to talk about the unfortunate experience and goes out alone, complaining about the state of the place. He lights a roll-up while sitting on a swing in the playground abutting a housing estate. But he is unsettled by a mother and child stopping in their tracks and heads into the woods to dispose of the contents of his bag. However, he is quickly confronted with its arachnoid limbs and he hurries back home. 

Philip asks Maurice if he can borrow his tools and the older man teases him about dismantling Possum when puppeteering was the only thing he was good at. He produces an old doll and reminds Philip that he had been taught the art by his dad. But Philip dismisses his contention that puppeteering must run in the family by hissing that Maurice is not his father. Up in his room, he hears about Michael's disappearance on the TV news and turns off the set, as the picture disintegrates into interference.

The next day, a couple of youths accuse Philip of being a pervert, as he passed them on some steps. He goes into the woods and is about to leave the bag in the tree with the tentacular branches when he hears a voice calling his name. Retrieving the bag, he crosses a flat expanse of land and sits on a bench to plot his next move. He reaches some marshland and tosses the bag into a rivulet from a narrow wooden bridge. As he tries to flee, however, he slips in the mud and feels compelling to wade into the shallow water to recover the bag. After a while, he up to see a doll's skull and some entangled limbs in the sodden earth. 

Waking from a nightmare-pocked sleep, Philip sees Possum's face on the pillow next to him and pushes the puppet on to the floor. He stuffs it in his bag and is about to leave when Maurice beckons him into the kitchen. Noticing the puppet sitting on his knee, Philip keeps his distance and flinches when Maurice offers him a treat from the sweet jar in the cupboard. Peering up from beneath the peak of his cap, Maurice asks Philip to recall the time some bullies had pushed his face into the wounds of a dead fox and he had been terrified when the creature had opened its eyes and slunk away. Cackling at the thought of the boy's discomfort, Maurice mentions that the old army barracks are about to be demolished and he taunts Philip when he pauses outside the door of a room that had always unnerved him. 

Creeping through the deserted barracks, Philip finds a cadet beret on a filthy mattress and inspects the badge before heading outside. He takes Possum out of the bag and we see him in full for the first time, as Philip raises him above his head and hurls him down to the ground. Having punched the clown-like head, he stamps on the doll before bundling it back into the weighted-down bag and tossing it into a water tank. 

Returning home, Philip sees Michael's face on the front page of the newspaper on the kitchen table. He is getting ready for bed when he hears Maurice reciting one of his Possum poems. Following the voice, Philip finds Maurice in a small sitting-room and snatches back his notebook. Maurice mocks him for being so defensive and asks if he has succeeded in getting rid of the puppet. Philip curses him for not having gone up in flames and retreats to the sound of a hacking cough and a scathing laugh. 

Strolling down to the railway station, Philip sits under the arch of a bridge and looks at the photograph of his parents that he keeps in his cigarette tin. He gets home to find Possum hanging on a hook in his bedroom and carries him into the garden, where Maurice is burning papers in an oil drum. Accepting one of the old man's smokes, Philip drops the puppet into the flames and uses a spade to push him deep into the furnace. Maurice reminds him of the time a boy went missing from his class when he was at school and feels sorry for him when he gags on a green sweet from the jar, as the memories of the tragic incident return. 

That night, Philip has another nightmare, as Possum keeps coming back from the dead and he wakes with a start to hear pounding on the front door. A spider scurries across the floorboards, as Philip tiptoes downstairs and hides behind a wall, as a torch beam shines in through the window. The next morning, he hears the television burst into life in his room and he watches a report about the police searching for a man fitting his description. Terrified of becoming caught up in the case, Philip goes scouring around the marshes and the barracks and has to dodge a patrol car. 

On arriving home, Maurice informs him that someone has been asking about him. He also tells Philip that he is going away for a few days and suggests that he lays low for a while. However, Philip goes to the nearby school and asks to see the headmaster. Feeling like a guilty pupil, as he had done when his classmate disappeared, Philip sits in the corridor outside the office. But his courage fails him and he runs away. As he sits staring at the snapshot of his parents, black liquid drizzles on to him and seeks sanctuary inside the barracks, However, Possum pursues him and Philip runs out of places to hide, as he passes a dead fox on a country path that revives to shoot him an accusatory glare. 

Appearing to wake from another nightmare, as one of the green sweets pops out of his mouth, Philip returns to his room to fight his demons. He sweats profusely and turns deathly pale, as he summons the courage to enter the room with the blackened door. Peering round the fire-damaged room, he sees a blanket on the floor and a jar that he holds up to the light. However, he is pinned to the ground by Maurice, who derides him for being a poor little orphan boy who lost his parents in a blaze. He blames him for failing to report the fact that Maurice had abused children throughout his teaching career and scoffs that he will now take the blame for Michael's disappearance. 

Too ashamed to resist, Philip allows Maurice to pull down his trousers and start thrashing him with his belt. But, on hearing muffled noises coming from inside a trunk, Philip suddenly snaps and not only defends himself, but also fights back. He breaks Maurice's neck and unlocks the case to let Michael scuttle free. As the film ends, Philip sits outside the back door of the house where he had known nothing but pain and waits for his immediate fate to be revealed. 

As is often the case with stories taking place inside a ravaged mind, it's not always easy to determine what is being imagined and what is happening for real. As with Mireille Enos in Camille Thoman's Never Here, Sean Harris appears to be trapped as much in his traumatic recollections as he is in his current predicament. Even though he snaps Alun Armstrong's neck during the climactic tussle, it's possible that he is merely being haunted by his erstwhile tormentor and that his efforts to destroy Possum represent his struggle to conquer the dark thoughts that have driven him to kidnap the boy whose doodling on the train brought back memories of his own youth. 

Wherever the truth lies, Matthew Holness keeps the audience guessing, while subjecting them to Harris's excruciating pain. At times resembling Derek Jacobi, as he strains to regain control of his mind, Harris gives a deeply troubling performance that is more than matched by Armstrong, who often appears to be chanelling his inner Wilfrid Brambell, as he leers and taunts his emotionally fraught victim. It's never established whether Armstrong is an uncle, a stepfather or merely a teacher, but the hold he exerts is vice-like and Holness makes inspired use of the score produced by the Radiophonic Workshop to keep the audience on edge. 

He also collaborates to excellent effect with cinematographer Kit Fraser, whose 35mm deep-focus imagery both conveys the bleakness of the East Anglian flatlands and brings out the dankness in every nook and cranny of Charlotte Pearson's forbidding, time-forgotten sets. Editor Tommy Boulding also deserves a mention for the dream sequences, even though he allows some of Harris's perambulations to drift. Creature designer Dominic Hailstone should also be lauded for giving Possum a head that recalls those skulls seen on plague monuments in gloomy country churches. But Holness must take the plaudits for taking a risk in dispensing with his trademark humour and for tackling such potent and pertinent themes in such an intriguingly innovative manner.

Although Studio Chizu has always operated in the shadow of Studio Ghibli, it has done its bit to popularise Japanimation around the world. In particular, the films of founder Mamoru Hosoda have demonstrated how it is possible to use fantasy to comment on such real-world issues as individual integrity, the fragility of the environment and the importance of family, Now, following such dynamic adventures as The Girl Who Leaps Through Time (2006), Summer Wars (2009), Wolf Children (2012) and The Boy and the Beast (2015), he draws on his own parental experience to chart a young boy's rite of passage in Mirai. 

Four year-old Kun (Moka Kamishiraishi) plays with the family dog, Yukko, in the house designed by his architect father (Gen Hoshino). His grandmother (Yoshiko Miyazaki) is minding him, while his mother, Yumi (Kumiko Aso), gives birth to his baby sister, Mirai, Having been spoilt rotten, Kun finds it difficult to share his mother and acts up when he doesn't get enough attention. Father is also finding the transition to house husband difficult and Yumi reminds him that he will have to do his bit now that there are two children to look after. 

Frustrated at having to play by himself, Kun hits Mirai with one of his toy trains and he accuses Yumi of being an ugly old hag when she reprimands him. He stomps into the courtyard, which seems to transform into a ruined abbey as a well-dressed stranger (Mitsuo Yoshihara) appears from behind the tree. Introducing himself as the prince of the household, the man explains how he was once the apple of Mother and Father's eyes and he deeply resented Kun when he stole his limelight. But he learned to accept the newcomer and suggests that Kun does the same with Mirai. When the prince shows an unexpected interest in Yukko's squeaky ball, Kun realises that he is the dog in human form and yanks off his tail and attaches it to himself to go yomping around the house, much to the bemusement of his parents. 

After three months, Grandma and Grandpa pay a visit and Kun clamours for their attention when they try to take pictures of Mirai. They notice that the baby has a red birthmark on her right hand, but Yumi insists it is nothing to worry about. She has placed a collection of dolls on a sideboard in order to ensure that Mirai finds a good husband. They discuss the Doll Ceremony over lunch and Kun gets bored. When Yumi returns to work, she reminds her husband to put the dolls away before the end of the day or Mirai's marriage prospects will be compromised. 

Bored at being left to play alone, Kun covers his sleeping sisters face with whale cookies before wandering into the courtyard. Once again, the enclosed area undergoes a transformation and Kun finds himself in a giant domed greenhouse. He follows a trail of whale cookies and bumps into the teenage Mirai (Haru Kuroki), who chides him for being so mean to her. Kun protests that he can't help disliking her, but he agrees to remind Father to put away the dolls to ensure she can marry the man of her dreams. However, he is too preoccupied with work to pay attention and Mirai sends Kun to distract him while she and the Prince pack away the dolls according to the ritual. This proves trickier than they had anticipated, however, and a baton held by the emperor doll gets stuck to Father's trouser leg and they have to sneak up on him to retrieve it. 

When their mission is accomplished, Mirai asks Kun if he is better disposed towards her and he shruggingly admits to thinking she's okay for a girl. But he soon gets cross with baby Mirai again when Yumi dotes on her during a rare day off after showing him some old photograph albums. Strutting into the courtyard in high dudgeon, Kun discovers it has changed into a vast underwater valley and a shoal of fish sweep him away from the scolding teenage Mirai to deposit him on a rain-soaked street that he doesn't recognise. He sees a young girl crying on the opposite pavement and discovers Yumi at his age. She is writing a note pleading with her mother to let her have a cat and she explains how she always gets her own way with both her parents and her younger brother. 

They head back to her family home, where she tips out all her sibling's toys so that Kun can play. She also treats him to some snacks in the kitchen before leading him on a merry dance of destruction around the house. When she hears her mother return, however, Yumi ushers Kun outside and he listens in some distress as a blazing row ensues, in which Yumi begs for forgiveness and promises not to be so naughty in the future. 

As Kun keeps dreaming during his afternoon nap, Yumi chats with her mother in the kitchen. She admits she had been a wilful child and only became house-proud after she got married. Her mother teases her about being a pest as a girl and jokes that Kun is very like her with his tantrums. Yumi hopes she can be a good mother and, when Kun wakes up to see her sleeping with Mirai on the couch next to him, he pats her head and a single tear trickles down her cheek when he tells her that she's a good girl. 

Father takes Kun and Mirai to the park for fresh air. Kun sees other boys riding their bicycles without stabilisers and asks if his can be removed. However, when Father tries to teach him how to balance on the grass, Kun keeps toppling over and he loses his temper when Father rushes back to the bench because Mirai has started crying. Flouncing into the courtyard, Kun finds himself in a workshop full of large engines. A man with a limp (Koji Yakusho) explains that they were built for aeroplanes during the war and he takes Kun to a nearby stable and offers to take him for a ride on horseback. Despite his misgivings, Kun enjoys the sensation and is soon speeding along on a motorbike with the stranger, who bears a curious resemblance to his father. 

The next time they go to the park, Kun manages to ride alone and the bigger boys invite him to play with him. Father is proud of him and tells Yumi what a hero he was. She compliments him on getting better at nursing Mirai and Father wells up, as he realises how magical family life can be. Turning the pages of the photo album, Kun recognises the man who had taught him so much and Yumi is amused when he confuses him with his father. She reveals that he is Kun's great-grandfather, who had built aero engines before being injured while serving in the navy. He had worked in a motorcycle factory and had only died the previous year. But Kun sees the connection and remains grateful to the man in the picture and his dad for helping him conquer his fears. 

Kun's contentment doesn't last long, however, and he throws a strop over a pair of shorts when Mother and Father have too much else on to cope with his mood. Deciding to run away, Kun hides in the bath and a wardrobe before packing a bag and strutting into the courtyard. This morphs into a country station and Kun ignores the advice of a youth in the waiting room and boards a train. He is excited to see the full-size versions of all his toy engines and is particularly thrilled to see a bullet train, as they arrive in Tokyo. But he finds the station a frightening place and becomes frustrated when the man at the Lost and Found booth keeps asking questions about his family that he can't answer. 

Dispatched to catch the service to Lonely Land, Kun refuses to get on board and has to race the length of the platform to prevent Mirai from crawling through the sliding doors. As he recovers from his tumble, he sees a hand with Mirai's birthmark reaching out to him and she plucks him into the air and they land in a tree top. However, this is the family tree and they see episodes from the past that brought them to this point in time: Father falling off his bike; Mother tending to a baby bird that had been mauled by a cat; Yukko saying goodbye to his mother as a puppy; and Great-Grandfather swimming ashore after his ship was bombed and later racing against the woman who would become his wife after she let him win so that he would propose to her. 

Mirai (whose name means `the Future') explains that lives are the sum of such small incidents and accidents and Kun returns to the present with a valuable lesson learned. As his parents pack the car for a holiday, they muse on how their children have made them better people. Kun sees Mirai in their playroom and they share his banana before he teaches her how to shout and they smile at each other and a lifelong bond is forged.

Repurposing Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol to teach a self-centred brat to appreciate the people around him, this may not be Hosoda's most ambitious storyline. But, named as it is after his own daughter, it's undoubtedly his most personal and accessible and tweenage viewers should be able to follow the English-language version easily enough. Much of the anime that reaches this country is primarily aimed at adult audiences, however, and new parents will find this intimate tale particularly relevant. 

As always with Hosoda, the graphics are sensational. The aerial views of Kun's town are splendidly detailed, while the different portal sites for his flights of fancy are charmingly atmospheric. A couple of sequences linger overlong, with the Doll Ceremony episode being teased out to a feeble punchline, while the sequence at the mainline station drifts between thrill and terror without creating sufficient awe or dread. The tumble through the family tree similarly feels less momentous than it should. Some of the close-ups of Kun and Mirai crying and laughing also feel a little gauche. But, with the aid of Masakatsu Takagi's jaunty score, the shifts in time and tone are otherwise handled with a dexterity that reflects Hosoda's insights into the minds of his toddling protagonist and his stressed parents.

It's been a while since Oxford featured in a movie and sophomore director Matt Gambell gives us a fine aerial view of the Dreaming Spires in his low-budget thriller, King of Crime. However, residents of Goring-on-Thames are also going to recognise the manor house in which much of the key action happens in this laudable bid to bring BritCrime into the cyber era by pitching an old-style villain against the terrorist extremists with designs on hijacking his online scamming empire. 

At the precise moment that Marcus King (Mark Wingett) discovers that vicious rivals have slaughtered some of his tech team, his wife Yvonne (Claire King) stabs Gemma Carter (Francesca Louise White), who has made the fatal mistake of revealing that Marcus is her father. She is determined to protect the interests of her twin sons, Andrew (Jonno Davies) and James (Zed Josef), and orders factotum Edward (Christopher Ellison) and new assistant Jessica Slade (Rachel Bright) to dump the body in the basement until she can decide where to bury it. Just to be on the safe side, Yvonne also sleeps with Robert the gardener (Jacob Crossley), who might have witnessed the dirty deed. 

Stealing Gemma's documents and taking a lock of hair that might come in useful at a later date, Jess wraps the corpse in a sheet and smooches with Andrew when he helps her carry it downstairs. That night in Oxford, however, she flirts in a bar with Anthony Tully (Hainsley Lloyd Bennett), a computer whizz kid who ditches friend Kylie White (Lisa Ronaghan) to go back to Jess's place. 

While walking home, however, they are mugged by two masked men, one of whom rapes Jess before running away. Tully thinks she should report the crime, but she explains that the assailant had slipped a note into her pocket warning her of worse to come unless she disables the security system she had been hired to crack in order to pay off her spiralling debts. Tully volunteers to use his skills to get Jess out of a jam, but is taken aback when she avers that she is much tougher than her mother, who killed herself because her father fell in love with somebody else. 

Marcus's sidekick, Jimmy Tate (Greg Tanner), discovers that the group putting the frighteners on his boss has links with ISIS and sets up a meeting in London with their chief fundraiser, Mr Mustaffa (Vas Blackwood). When Marcus tries to play hardball, Mustaffa shows him live pictures of a suicide bomber blowing himself up in a pub linked to Marcus's operation and gives him 48 hours to hand over his empire or face the consequences. Jess and Tully see news coverage of the blast and she turns on the waterworks to convince him to help her bypass the firewall and keep her safe. However, she leaves her flat and meets up with Andrew, who had staged the rape to dupe Tully into putting his expertise at the disposal of the King cause. 

Andrew isn't the only member of the family with a secret to hide, however, as his father is having an affair with George (Bryn Hodgen), a transvestite who lives in a cottage on the outskirts of town. While they are taking tea, however, a suicide bomber arrives at the manor and Tate is badly injured trying to incapacitate him. In visiting him in hospital, however, Marcus discovers that Tate is diabetic, like his sons, and he does some research online that leads him to draw a sobering conclusion. He gets Jess to take a hair sample from Tate and have it compared with those from James's comb. Nevertheless, he recognises that Andrew and James still have their uses and sends them to punish Dexter (Richard Summers-Calvert) for stealing family credit cards by turning his girlfriend Zoe (Makenna Guyler) into a human torch.

Determined to hang on to his ill-gotten gains, Marcus brings Tully to the mansion and offers him £1 million and Jess's release from dungeon captivity if he can devise a code that will protect his assets from Mustaffa's hackers. However, the Frenchman isn't in the mood to be generous with time and slices off Marcus's earlobe to prove that he means business. Meanwhile, Tate tells Yvonne that Marcus has realised he didn't father the twins and she cuts a deal with Mustaffa to betray her husband in return for a cut of his fortune. But Kylie photographs their meeting and calls Marcus to see if he would be willing to help take down a common enemy.

Furious at being caught out at every turn, Marcus takes out his frustration on George, who is beaten so badly that he has to be hospitalised. Jess goes to see him, as she is his daughter. However, she uses Gemma's DNA test results to convince Marcus that he is her father and he is glad to have a child of his own after learning that Tate sired Andrew and James. He tells Jess to meet him at the airport the next day, as he is leaving Blighty to start again, Marcus wants George to come with him and leaves a suitcase under his hospital bed before heading home to lock Yvonne and her sons in the blazing manor. 

Unwilling to let Andrew perish, Jess rushes back to rescue him. At that moment, Tully calls Marcus to inform him that he has completed his mission and insists that Jess is freed under the terms of their arrangement. But she had already flown to Spain (not Mexico, as Marcus let Yvonne believe) and he is delighted when George comes to join them. He is appalled to find Jess masquerading as Marcus's daughter in order to avenge her mother's suicide. But they don't have much time for talk, as Andrew and Yvonne show up pointing pistols, only for Marcus to kill his wife after she shoots him in the groin for cheating on her and Andrew to be wounded by a stray shot. 

That's when a couple of soldiers burst in and knock Marcus unconscious and Jess is also captured as she tries to flee. When she wakes, she finds himself on a USAF base in Norfolk and learns that Tully is a CIA agent in cahoots with Kylie, who has been playing her from the start. Marcus discovers the same thing when he is taken to an empty Stadium MK to meet Brad Walsh (Nicholas Brendon), who has been using his cyber set-up as bait to snare Mustaffa. He offers Marcus a new identity and he is soon sunning himself on a yacht in Gibraltar. But he is poisoned by a fake waiter and Tully takes Jess back to the mansion to inform her that Marcus bequeathed it to her in the mistaken belief she was his child. He urges her to make the most of her windfall and she is swayed when she sees Andrew appear at the door. 

Echoes of the indie features produced by the likes of Tristan Loraine and Oxford's own Vicky Jewson reverberate through this effectively made crime saga. Dunscombe's screenplay is full of deft twists and turns, but the characterisation is markedly less effective, while too much of the dialogue rings hollow. Making his second feature after completing What Goes Up (2014) while still a student in Lincoln, Gambell makes the most of his locations and keeps Tom Anderson's camera close to the protagonists. However, while TV veterans Mark Wingett and Claire King are quite at home in such murky situations, the less experienced Rachel Bright has the odd awkward moment, while some of the support playing is decidedly average. 

Saverio Rapezzi and Luigi Pulcini's score also lays it on thick during the action sequences, while some of the visual effects are highly unconvincing. But it takes dedication and courage to make movies at this end of the market and Gambell and Dunscombe should be applauded for their ambitions rather than upbraided for shortcomings that are far less egregious than those in the majority of thick-earned BritCrime flicks.

Nothing will ever surpass Patricio Guzmán's three-part masterpiece, The Battle of Chile (1975-79), when it comes to chronicling the causes and consequences of the coup led by General Augusto Pinochet against the democratically elected President Salvador Allende on 11 September 1973. However, Felipe Bustos Sierra's ¡Nae Pasaran! uncovers the forgotten story of how the situation in South America impacted upon the workers at a factory in Scotland. 

An opening newsreel montage recounts the events that brought Pinochet to power and left Allende dead inside the Moneda Palace in Santiago after it had been air-bombed by British-made Hawker Hunter jets. We see bodies floating in rivers after reprisal killings and prisoners being incarcerated in the national football stadium. Clips are also included of international protests against the junta and the American corporations that had encouraged the CIA to reclaim what they considered to be stolen assets. Among the protests was the refusal of the workforce at the Rolls Royce plant in East Kilbride to service the engines needed by the Chilean air force. 

As a child growing up in Belgium, Felipe Bustos Sierra had been told about the global protests by his exiled journalist father and he comes to East Kilbride to meet with four of the 3000 workers who had boycotted the Hawker Hunter job: John Keenan, Bob Fulton, Stuart Barrie and Robert Sommerville. They recall 22 March 1974 as if it was yesterday and describe how shop steward Fulton led the campaign to use union rules about `blacking' politically tainted components to have the Chilean engines declared off limits. As the management couldn't risk a confrontation with the union over such a contentious issue, the engines were left where they had been delivered. 

Although supported by factory convenor Peter Lowe and his deputy, Dougie Gillies, as well as by Labour MPs like Frank Allaun, the boycott made life difficult for John Boyd, the leader of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, as the blacked items were preventing other machinery from coming on to the shop floor. An agreement was reached, therefore, to box up the Chilean engines and leave them in the yard, where they quickly began to corrode and soon became worthless. 
During a march in London on 15 September, the late president's widow, Hortensia Bussi de Allende, personally thanked the Rolls Royce workers for their actions and they reveal how they received letters from across the country backing their downing of tools. Among their most treasured items are drawings from Dr Sheila Cassidy, who had been imprisoned and tortured for opposing Pinochet before her release on 31 December 1975. 

But, while the workers held firm, the Chilean government threatened legal action to recover what it considered stolen property. Four of the engines disappeared on 26 August 1978 and Keenan, Fulton, Barrie and Sommerville suggest that the British military conducted the operation using false number plates. To this day, however, the fate of those engines has yet to be determined and Bustos Sierra returns to Santiago in a bid to find out and to discover how much his compatriots actually knew about the four-year Scottish stand-off.

He enlists the help of academic and freelance journalist Pascale Bonnefoy to find official records relating to the case. But she reveals that Pinochet passed a law after the 1988 referendum that allowed him to destroy military documents that might compromise national security (as well as his own reputation). Thus, she is certain that there will be no paper trail relating to the Rolls Royce engines and she suggests that he will need to speak to those directly involved in the episode. 

He conducts the first interview on-camera with General Fernando Rojas Vender, the retired commander-in-chief of the Chilean Air Force, who had flown Hawker Hunters during his time in uniform. Moreover, he had led a mission codenamed Operation Atlantes to fly the last batch of planes sold by Hawker Sidley from RAF Dunsfold in Surrey in February 1974. This was just 35 days before the East Kilbride blockade began and he is proud that he beat the arms embargo that had been imposed against his homeland.

However, Captain Raúl Vergara Meneses quit the air force after the coup, as he had hoped that Allende would transform Chile and make it a fairer country. But, as broadcaster Leonardo Cáceres and ex-Minister of Health Arturo Jirón Vargas recall, the regime's enemies colluded in an import ban that led to serious shortages of vital supplies. Miraculously, the problems ended the moment Pinochet seized power and the men have no doubt that this was a capitalist conspiracy supported by the multinational conglomerates that stood to lose billions if Allende policies like the nationalisation of the copper mines had been allowed to thrive. 

Former air force pilot Jaime Donoso Parra, mechanic Humberto Arenas Pereira and ex-chief of detectives Juan Seoane Miranda remember the day of the coup and how difficult it was to defend the Moneda. Using computerised effects, Bustos Sierra shows how the palace caught fire during the Hawker Hunter raid and Sergio Requena-Rueda of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) recalls how the flames sapped morale among Allende's supporters, Much more effective are the monochrome archive images of the burning buildings and the shock on the faces of Seoane and Jirón, as they remember being marched away by soldiers. Only the shouts of women watching from a nearby window prevents Jirón and his companions from being crushed by a tank, while Seoane was the only one of 50 prisoners to be spared a firing squad. 

Watching these interviews, the Scottish quartet are dismayed by the inhumanity of the regime. Over footage of the concentration camps on Dawson Island off Tierra del Fuego and at Chacabuco in the Atacama Desert, Jirón remembers the brutal treatment he had endured, while Vergara, Donoso, Arenas and Commander Ernesto Galaz Guzmán describe how air force officers who refused to support the coup were subjected to punishment beatings and were even lined up in front of dummy firing squads in a bid to coerce them into naming fellow travellers. Yet, while they sometimes felt that the world had forgotten them, Radio Moscow broadcast a programme called `Escucha Chile' and, through it, several of the interviewees heard about the Rolls Royce boycott. 

They were not alone, however, as Gordon Hutchinson from Joint Working Group for Chilean Refugees and Alan Angell from Academics for Chile reflect on their efforts to publicise the atrocities being committed by Pinochet's forces. Mike Gatehouse from the Chile Solidarity Campaign and Alan Philips of the World University Service recall Labour Minister for Overseas Development Judith Hart diverting funding for Chile towards helping refugees. However, as the Home and Foreign Offices were taking advice from Pinochet and the CIA about potential security risks, there was an enormous delay in the issuing of visas. So, pressure groups across Britain adopted a political prisoner and lobbied for their release.

Shortly after the first group of Chileans arrived in London, Sheila Cassidy was released and she recalls being given a pair of jeans by her fellow inmates with the names of all the women in her prison written into the waistband. Arenas also remembers being taken to Amnesty International to view lists of detainees and being told that he had been one of seven prisoners exchanged for four of the Rolls Royce engines. Fulton is deeply moved when he hears that their actions helped save lives, although Amnesty's Pat Stocker and Roger Plant can't verify his claim and David Stephen, a former advisor to the Foreign Secretary, considers it highly unlikely.  

However, Bustos Sierra unearths a letter suggesting that the Chilean government had contemplated inviting Lowe and Gillies to Santiago in a bid to bribe them into relaxing the boycott. But their workmates and son John Gillies have no doubt that any such enticements would have been rejected out of hand. They also laugh off suggestions that efforts were made to intimidate them into releasing the engines or working on them. But they are intrigued to learn from Rojas Vender that the blockade made it difficult to keep his squadron in the air and the unnamed son of a crashed pilot has no doubt that mechanical failure drove his father into the ocean. The retired general also confirms that efforts were made to source parts from Israel, South Africa, Kenya and India. 

During his time in Santiago, Bustos Sierra discovers that the four of the engines impounded in East Kilbride had powered planes on 11 September. Fulton is overwhelmed by the idea that he helped weaken Pinochet. But Rojas Vender scoffs at Bustos Sierra's suggestion that he was a principled war veteran rather than a political zealot and suggests he was every bit as indoctrinated as Islamist terrorists. Barrie speaks boldly in defence of their ideologies and instincts and it's sad that he was not able to accompany Keenan, Fulton and Sommerville to the Chilean Embassy in London to see messages of gratitude from opponents of the dictatorship and receive the country's highest civilian award.

Back in Chile, Bustos Sierra has one last journey to make, When the Chilean Air Force decommissioned the Hawker Hunters in 2005, the son of the crashed pilot bought the 32 engines left in service and deposited them in a barren plot in the middle of nowhere. Among them was one of the East Kilbride engines and he has Avon 15607 craned out of the yard and shipped back to Scotland, where the foursome help open the packing crate and come face to face with their past. The nonagenarian Fulton finds it very emotional, but Barrie hopes that the story will remind those who don't always stand up for what they believe of the importance of sticking to their principles. 

Very much a labour of love, this is also a film of deceptive potency, as Bustos Sierra seeks to uncover long-buried secrets and shed fresh light on the quiet heroics of an entire workforce prepared to defend democracy against invidious fascism. It's a shame there wasn't room for a few more members of staff, including some women, and mention might have been made of why Stuart Barrie was denied his day at the embassy. Indeed, it takes until the delivery of the engine in the final scene for Bustos Sierra to identify his fab four and it's only in the closing credits that John Gillies is named. But such housekeeping glitches shouldn't detract from a noble endeavour that strives hard to make its case, even when the facts don't necessarily support the contention, as with the claims made by Humberto Arenas. 

Cinematographer Peter Keith, editor Colin Monie and composer Patrick Neil Doyle make solid contributions, although some of the effects work, particularly in adding flames to a drone shot of the Moneda, are tackily distasteful. But, in expanding his 2013 short, Bustos Sierra should be lauded for telling this remarkable tale without the kind of sentimental politicking found in the likes of Nigel Cole's Made in Dagenham (2010). However, don't be surprised if the East Kilbride renegades aren't given a Loachian makeover in the next year or so.

In the heyday of events like the Adventure Travel Film Festival, low-budget tales of derring-do like Chris Lucas's The Yukon Assignment used to slip on to the weekly release schedule with a little more frequency than is currently the case. However, the efforts of the thirtysomething Cornish-based adventurer and his 64 year-old father, Niall, during their 500-mile canoe journey through some of the remotest country in Canada makes for fascinating and often spectacular viewing. 

Leaving his seven-month pregnant wife back in Blighty, Chris organises the expedition and expresses some concern at taking the inexperienced Niall, as they haven't spent a lot of time together and he worries that their relationship might fray in the face of hardship. However, Niall has been preparing for the trip for several months and seems keen to learn and do his bit rather than just coast along for the ride. As a former actor, Lucas Sr. is quite at home in front of the camera and jokes about his decision to take two tents being quickly justified by the fact his son doesn't have to put up with his snoring. 

After getting themselves orientated at Lake McCluskey, the pair paddle off on a chilly morning and make unhurried and uneventful progress. Niall is excited to see a caribou wading across the Wind River in front of them and they set up their camp to provide the maximum protection from any inquisitive bears or wolves. Nevertheless, they spot a grizzly galumping along the opposite bank and Chris does a nervous piece to camera about having to stay alert during the night. As they are in the Arctic at the height of summer, however, darkness never falls and the duo have to acclimatise themselves to the body clock conditions, as well as the majestic mountain scenery, the changing colour of the light and the clearness of the fast-flowing water. 

Relieved that Niall is coping with the daily schedule, Chris is also grateful for the chance to spend quality time with his father and discuss topics like family history and hopes for the future that they have never broached before. But, while they both appreciate the chance to chat, they have come for once in a lifetime experiences and a close encounter with an adolescent bear in hot pursuit of a wounded caribou keeps them on their toes after they are denied the chance to climb a mountain by the descent of a thick cloud bank. The jitteriness of their banter during this episode is highly revealing, as father and son tries to reassure the other that they are prepared for every eventuality while conceding that their excitement is tinged with a fair amount of apprehension. 

As the push further north, they notice the wind chill increasing. But the isolation proves intoxicating, as they realise they are the only humans for hundreds of miles around. Approaching Mount Royal, they stop to do a little prospecting with a pan Niall has purchased specially for the occasion. However, they fail to strike gold and also decide against trying to scale the peak, as the rocks underfoot started to become treacherous. Nevertheless, they enjoy the trek and Chris explains that respecting terrain is crucial on an expedition where emergency calls aren't an option. Once back in camp, Niall notes how odd it feels being led by the son who once followed his lead. But his pride is evident, as they build a fire and ready themselves to head down Wind River and into the tundra. 

Hitting incessant rain that soaks through their waterproofs, the intrepid twosome suffer in silence during a gruelling day and are close to suffering from hypothermia by the time they reach Deception Mountain. Fortunately, they find a sheltered inlet and are able to pitch camp and their spirits rise the next day when they find a fresh water spring and bake pizzas on a roaring fire. With their clothing dried, they climb to the top and survey the scenery sprawling out before them. Niall complains he's getting too old for this kind of thing, but he makes it back to camp for an amusing conversation about his shortcomings as a father. He hopes Chris will feel a more natural parent, as he never got into it and confesses that he could and should have done better.

The next day, they venture into the notorious Peel Canyon that has brought many an expedition to a watery end. But they pass through relatively easily and celebrate by cooking the fish they have caught in the river. They even have time to draw a line in the earth and scrawl `Arctic Circle' before deciding that it's much warmer on the southern side of the frontier. A combination of mosquitoes, homesickness and the less awe-inspiring scenery along the sluggishly muddy Peel River dampens spirits slightly, however, and the duo are ready for journey's end after they see a memorial to a couple of Mounties who perished in a bid to reach Dawson City. 

While Niall reflects on proving to himself that he's not quite past it yet, Chris takes some time to thank the landscape for the experience and claims that the wilderness gives him the sense of humility that others get on entering a great cathedral. On their last night, the sky is golden and black and they congratulate each other on completing a forbidding expedition in one piece and with a new depth to their relationship. It's a touching ending and most viewers will feel a pang at having to part from such genial company.

Essentially a glorified video diary, this recalls films like Paddle to Seattle (2009), which followed Josh Thomas and JJ Kelley's bid to navigate the Inside Passage from Skagway in Alaska to Seattle in Washington State in a sea kayak. The banter between the buddies is replicated by Lucas père et fils, although they are rather more reserved and (unsurprisingly) less willing to take the reckless option. That said, anyone who has seen Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man (2005) will be particularly nervous during the episode with the frisky bear. But they form a fine team and capture some wonderful footage during their trip, which has been deftly woven together by editor Charlie Fripp. 

Despite the frequent cutaways to maps, it isn't always entirely clear how many days have passed and it comes as a surprise when Chris mentions that they have been travelling for a month. It's also slightly frustrating that he mentions the tomes he has been reading on the region, but shares little of the information with the audience. Clearly, this isn't supposed to be a travelogue with touristy tips and anecdotes. But it might have been nice to learn something about the geology, geography and history of the terrain and how often it has been traversed. Such quibbles aside, however, this is rewarding and enjoyable and those who can should heed Chris's advice about making a phone call and planning an adventure of their own.