A Kind of Murder (2016)

This movie, based on Patricia Highsmith's The Blunderer, about Walter Stackhouse, an author whose suffering in an unhappy marriage is alleviated when his wife is found dead under a bridge, has all the trappings of a good noir thriller but becomes less and less rewarding and more and more nebulous as it goes on.

★★☆☆☆

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The Illusionist (2006)

Childhood sweethearts are reunited in adulthood when she, now fiance to the Austrian Crown Prince Leopold, is called up on stage to participate in his David Copperfield-style magic show, in this very romantic mystery that slightly frustrates with its NQR historical context too blurry to justify the morally ambiguous implications of the movie's twist.

★★★☆☆

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Total Recall (2012)

Strip the original of its kookiness, Schwarzenegger's wooden acting, the NQR SFX - in other words, strip it of much of its fun, imagination and daring - and you get this unnecessary remake, its problems compounded by the presence of a particularly plucked, waxed, plasticky and possibly wholly computer-generated Colin Farrell.

★★☆☆☆

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