It was good to see a movie written and directed by Luc Besson. Maybe not his best, but Lucy is an enjoyable action thriller with Scarlett Johansson in the title roll. The premise is pretty silly, Lucy endures her brain power being massively increased and eventually relies upon Morgan Freeman as the top Professor in his field to help her make sense of what is happening to her. It enables her to take revenge on those who caused her problem. Johansson is terrific as an action hero and the finale is suitably mind blowing. Good fun.
I described S J Watson's first book as being an unsettling but brilliant read. Before I Go To Sleep has also made for a very decent movie. Fortunately I had forgotten what happens, so I could experience the tension of this nail biting thriller all over again. Adapted and directed by Rowan Joffe, this is a worthy three hander with Nicole Kidman on fine form supported by Colin Firth and Mark Strong. So almost a wholly British mainstream thriller, of which there are too few. We even get the obligatory views of London, this time from the top of Greenwich Park near the Observatory.
Another movie of a book I enjoyed. This time John Le Carre's A Most Wanted Man. This time a largely American cast located to Hamburg and directed by Anton Corbijn. The plot sticks very closely to the book. The only major deviation being instead of it being centred around a 60 year old British banker called Tommy Brue (Willem Defoe sounds German and has a very subsidiary role), this time the lead role is that of a German anti-terrorism boss played majestically by Philip Seymour Hoffman. I guess the movie needed this for it to work on the big screen. Nina Hoss, Robin Wright and Rachel McAdams are all good, but it is Hoffman in one of his last roles that again shows what a great actor he was.
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