Just Mercy (2019)

Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of the book upon which this movie is based, is depicted here (by Michael B Jordan) setting up the EJI and working to free from death row a first client, Alabama prison inmate 'Johnny D' (Jamie Foxx) and if there are moments you wish this long and only very plainly told 5-star story were over, you'll sit through it in any case given the case Stevenson makes against capital punishment is unequivocal and uncomfortable, and incontrovertible is his presentation of the justice system, its courts, police, and jails as a flawed (but held up as sacrosanct) temple of white privilege - a theatre not furnished with iluminated exit signs for the benefit of the beset inside.

★★★☆☆

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Law Abiding Citizen (2009)

The horribly wronged Count of Monte Cristo has you on side all the way through his revenge plot in Dumas' thousand-odd pages, but after his wife and child are brutally killed by home invaders in this film's opening scenes, Gerard Butler's horribly wronged Law Abiding Citizen only momentarily has your sympathy when suddenly the movie pulls the revenge-thriller rug out from under you and makes him the Batman technology-enhanced, street-smart Jason Bournish villain of the film and it is up to Jamie Foxx's prosecutor Nick Rice to stop him enacting his cold dish of extremely gruesome revenge on everyone that failed him.

★★☆☆☆

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White House Down (2013)

Sometimes romantic lead, sometimes teen heartthrob, sometimes dancing sex symbol, sometimes powerhouse dramatic actor, here the versatile Channing Tatum tries his hand at the John McClane role in a Die Hard clone set in a besieged White House, but he is not exactly the centre of attention - there are too many other characters vying unsuccessfully for that, including Jamie Foxx as the POTUS requiring extraction from the hostage situation - and so with your focus divided across myriad players, and further distracted by ill-timed bursts of humour during the high action, you never care what happens but can at least enjoy the audacious sight of the President in his limousine doing doughnuts on the South Lawn while shooting a missile launcher.

★★☆☆☆

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Baby Driver (2017)

Baby, a getaway driver for thieves, blocks out the bad around him by listening to killer music on his iPod all day, but eventually he has to de-bud and deal with the chaos closing in around him, not just that created by the psychopaths he is inextricably tied up with and who are growing more trigger-happy by the second but also the chaos of director Edgar Wright's plot which, like the psychopaths, starts off stylish and engaging but quickly becomes unreasonable and descends into a loud mess with little pay-off.

★★★☆☆

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Django Unchained (2012)

It is interesting this, another Tarantino revenge-driven pulp saga, references The Three Musketeers because it is Dumas' other work, The Count of Monte Cristo, that springs to mind watching Jamie Foxx's ex-slave Django, at one stage horseback in a shimmering electric blue Fauntleroy outfit, enjoying a renaissance in disguise, meting out a cold dish of revenge against America's South, but this is less rollicking fun than Dumas' story and more than other Tarantino, anxiety-inducing and contrived.

★★★☆☆

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