Get Duked! review - briefly endearing, then a chore

A likable cast goes down for the count in coming-of-age misfire

An endearing cast does what it can to keep Get Duked! aloft until writer-director Ninian Doff's movie sinks under the weight of too many wearisome shifts in tone. A coming-of-age film that is alternately silly and sentimental while wanting at times to be scary as well, the result leaves no doubt as to the talents of its gifted young cast. Rather more debatable is music video alum Doff's control over material that lurches all over the map, buoying up the audience on the back of some fresh-faced leads before devolving into absurdity by the final reel. 

Project Power - so-so attempt to reinvent the superhero genre

★★★ PROJECT POWER So-so attempt to reinvent the superhero genre

Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt star alongside Dominique Fishback in fun thriller set in New Orleans

What if there was a pill you could pop that gave you superpowers? The only catch is that, while it might make you invisible or bullet-proof, it might also boil your brain or make you explode with just one hit.

The Deceived, Channel 5 review - who's fooling who?

Confused drama can't decide whether it's a thriller or a ghost story

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again, except somebody had renamed it The House at Knockdara. This was the title of the first novel by Michael Callaghan, Cambridge literature don, aspiring writer and serial seducer of his female students. Played here by Emmett J Scanlan, in young-fogey tweeds and Ernest Hemingway beard, Callaghan had “F for Fake” running all the way through him.

Make Up review – coming of age in creepy Cornwall

★★★★ MAKE UP Coming of age in creepy Cornwall

Deceptive seaside psychothriller-cum-fairytale heralds the arrival of a gifted director

Minutes into Make Up, Claire Oakley’s auspicious first feature as writer-director, unearthly sounds welcome unwitting Ruth (Molly Windsor) to her intimidating baptismal adventure as an 18-year-old who's not so much bi-curious as bi-phobic. A nail-biter to begin with, she’s soon hearing and seeing portents of horror everywhere, not least on the tips of her fingers.

Unhinged review - road-rage Russ goes gonzo

★★ UNHINGED Russell Crowe's vigilante movie needs more than sadism and savagery

Russell Crowe's vigilante movie needs more than sadism and savagery

It may be one of the first movies to be shown in cinemas post-lockdown, but Unhinged is a pale ghost of some much better movies. Its headlining hook is the presence of Russell Crowe in the central role of a road-rage vigilante itching to find victims upon whom to vent his spleen – at one point he gives his name as Tom Cooper, but it probably isn’t – yet Crowe is barely recognisable as the star who bossed Gladiator or rocked the house in LA Confidential.

7500 review - a turbulent ride

★★★★ 7500 Debut thriller will have you avoiding airports for good

Debut thriller will have you avoiding airports for good

Thank goodness no-one’s going anywhere this year, because 7500 does for planes what Jaws did for bright yellow lilos. Set entirely within the cockpit of a passenger jet, this thriller trims all the fat, leaving a taut nightmare that pulls no punches.

John Grisham: Camino Winds review - morality tale with a light touch

★★★ JOHN GRISHAM: CAMINO WINDS Morality tale with a light touch

Grisham’s latest thriller is a playful and topical take on the thriller formula

John Grisham is a brand, in the sense that the reader relies on some sense of what the product is going to be. He is well up in the millions of sales, along with other writers under the “thriller/mystery” umbrella – Michael Connelly, David Baldacci, Ken Follett and Harlan Coben, to name but four. Still, as eagerly as his fans may await their yearly fix, he always manages to surprise.

Dangerous Lies, Netflix review - slick silliness

★★ DANGEROUS LIES, NETFLIX Hoary inheritance hokum is Dickensian in worst way

Hoary hokum about a dodgy inheritance is Dickensian in the worst way

When not dipping into its bottomless debts to write Scorsese blank cheques, Netflix tends to favour old-school TV movie potboilers such as this slick, silly thriller, in which young couple Katie (Camila Mendes) and Adam (Jessie T Usher) have their moral flaws picked apart by financial temptation.

The Whistlers review – a smart, self-aware noir concerning a crooked cop

★★★★ THE WHISTLERS  Playful and cunningly crafted neo-noir 

Playful and cunningly crafted neo-noir is a delight from start to finish

Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu has made a career crafting perceptive and cerebral examinations of his native country. From his 2006 debut 12:08 to Bucharest to The Treasure, they were cerebral films that powerfully embodied the Romanian New Wave.