FILM REVIEWS:
180 (South Africa 2026) ***
Directed by Alex Jazbe
When an unexpected road rage incident puts his son in critical condition, an enraged father spirals down a dark path of emotional turmoil and vengeance.
In a way, 180 is the ultimate revenge movie. What would be a more devastating tragedy that could happen to anyone? When one loses a son. In 180, a father exacts vengeance when his son is hot and killed in an accident that should not have happened - a question of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. 180 is a South African action movie that ramps up the ante in a film that feels similar to Lian Neeson's action TAKEN series of films. Director Alex Jazbec knows his stuff (also following the footsteps of the vigilante Charles Bronson film DEATH WISH) and executes his action film without any inhibition. The result is a satisfactory action flick, though it breaks no new ground, in the fresh setting of South Africa, where violence is the more of the norm.
The film successfully blends emotional drama with revenge storytelling. The basic premise follows Zak, a man who has left behind a violent criminal past to live a peaceful, law-abiding life. But everything changes after a road rage incident spirals out of control and leaves his young son critically injured. Overcome with grief, guilt, and rage, Zak loses faith in the legal system. His quest becomes a dark revenge journey, where the line between justice and vengeance gets blurred.
180 premieres on Netflix Friday, April 17th, 2026.
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AMRUM (Germany 2025) ***** Top 10
Directed by Fatih Akin
Amrum is a 2025 German historical drama film directed by Fatih Akin and co-written by Akin with Hark Bohm, based on Bohm's childhood on the German island of Amrum during the last months of World War II. It stars Jasper Billerbeck, Kian Köppke, Laura Tonke, Diane Kruger, Detlev Buck, and Matthias Schweighöfer.
The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Premiere section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, on 15 May,[4] where it was met with positive reviews from critics.[5][6] It was theatrically released in Germany on 9 October by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Bohm died two months after the film's theatrical release in Germany
The film AMRUM is set in the little-known island of Amrum. Amrum is a German island located in the North Sea, part of the North Frisian Islands in the district of Nordfriesland within the state of Schleswig-Holstein. Situated near the Danish border, it is known for its wide sandy beaches, dunes, and position within the Wadden Sea UNESCO World Heritage site. Amrum is indeed a gorgeous, bright island that any tourist should look forward to visiting. The bright setting contrasts with the bleak childhood experiences of a German Hitler Youth called Manning as he navigates the death of Adolf Hitler at the end of the war. The island also serves as a metaphor for the story.
1945, in the final weeks of World War II, in a small village on the island of Amrum off Germany's North Sea coast. Twelve-year-old Nanning Bohm, the eldest child in his family, works in the potato fields or gathers driftwood for firewood to help his mother feed the family. She is a staunch Nazi and is in the later stages of pregnancy. He, his aunt Ena, and his two younger siblings had to flee to the island from bombed-out Hamburg.
Nanning's father is an SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) and is away at war; his wife is left to fend for herself on Amrum, while the villagers secretly listen to proscribed jazz on the radio.
As the war draws to a close, Nanning faces new challenges. Since the birth of his sister and the death of Adolf Hitler, his mother has fallen into a deep depression and refuses to eat.
This is where Nanning’s role in the story starts to take place. He manoeuvres his life, keeping his head above the evil waters around him.
AMRUM is a remarkable, moving little film that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit, especially how the boy, Nanning, survives all the evils of his Nazi family’s evils, managing to do good above all the evil surrounding him. He also manages to save the life of an enemy, a man who drowns while trying to steal butter from the boy. If this quite little disquieting film does not move you, nothing probably will. This is Fatih Atkin’s best film to date.
The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Premiere section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, on 15 May, where it was met with positive reviews from critics. It was theatrically released in Germany on 9 October by Warner Bros. Pictures. Bohm, who wrote the film based on his own experiences, died two months after the film's theatrical release in Germany
AMRUM opens at the TIFF Lightbox on Friday, April 17th. A must-see!
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ASSASSIN (China 2025) ***
Directed by Zhou Jiuquin
ASSASSIN (2025) (also known as Assassination: 1932) is a Chinese historical action-drama set during the early years of the Second Sino-Japanese conflict.
It is Shanghai in the 1930s. Occupied by the Japanese and on the brink of war.
When elite fighter Mubai is recruited for a top-secret assassination, he is thrown into brutal battle against the Japanese military machine. Hunted through city streets, train lines, and enemy strongholds, Mubai fights his way through ambushes, explosions, and brutal close-quarters combat to reach a single target who could change history. With time running out and bodies piling up, survival depends on speed, skill, and nerve.
The full story (including spoilers. Skip next paragraph, in italics, as deemed fit.)
Zhang Mubai, the leader of a group of traitors, washes away the Japanese army at a celebration banquet and befriends Jin Yuanbao, a gangster. To assassinate Kurokawa, a think-tank for the invasion of China, they boarded a ship in disguise but fell into the trap of a body double, and were tortured by the secret agent Sato. When they escape by blowing up the arsenal, they witness Sato's disfigurement and run away. After the tragic death of a gangster, Mr Hu Baxi, his funeral triggers the public to blockade the wedding of Kurokawa's son. Zhang Mubai takes advantage of the chaos and kills Sato, while Kurokawa is intercepted and killed by a wall of people's flesh and blood as he flees. As his comrades perish, Zhang Mubai throws his ashes into the Huangpu River and turns to the underground resistance - the courage of a mole cricket becomes the spark that tears apart the dark night.
Despite the film’s historical setting, the setting and story are an excuse for the following in the lineage of nonstop combat films like John Wick, The Raid, and Ong Bak, very popular and successful box-office hits. Assassin does not disappoint as a relentless action thriller, as it features elite fight choreography that will leave fans of the genre breathless amidst a few ultra-violent eye-gouging scenes. But the film differs from the other Chinese action films for the following reasons. It includes action, espionage, and war drama with a strong emphasis on patriotism and collective resistance.
Besides the high-octane action scenes, one must commend the impressive effort to accomplish the period atmosphere of 1930s Shanghai. From the costumes that include both Chinese and Japanese military to the props, decor, and furniture to the vehicles used at the time, everything looks immaculate.
The introduction of a comedic romantic subplot also works really well. It also shows how love can comically transform one into a true hero. Take it for what it is worth. The film, unfortunately, contains a few really nasty elements that could have been done away with, such as the multiple rapping scenes of a captured female resistance fighter. The Japanese are shown to be truly evil beings, though with a bit of comic villainy.
ASSASSIN premieres, arriving on VOD & Digital on April 17th, 2026.
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THE CHRISTOPHERS (USA 2025) ***½
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Director Soderbergh teams up again with writer Ed Solomon to create a stylish chamber piece rich with dialogue and colourful characters set in the art world of forgery and deception.
The film centres on Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen), a once-celebrated painter now reclusive and dwindling in relevance, and his estranged children who see his unfinished series of paintings ("The Christophers") as a potential posthumous windfall. They hire Lori Butler (Michaela Coel), a struggling art restorer posing as his assistant, to finish or forge these works so they can profit from them after his death. Lori and Julian begin a relationship that is both hateful and tolerant, which grows for the queerest of reasons. McKellen is excellent in delivering his lines, exhibiting black humour, pathos, and respect for both his character and for himself as an actor. Again, another small but wonderful entertainment from Soderbergh.
LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY (UA 2026) **
Directed by Lee Cronin
The film begins in Aswan, Egypt, where a man, a woman, and their daughter, Layla, arrive home to find their pet bird dead. The parents go to the cellar, which is revealed to be built on a buried black pyramid. Inside, a black basalt sarcophagus contains mummified human remains that begin moving, and the father is killed by a supernatural force. Apparently, it is revealed that the father and mother are aware of the human remains. And the mother, all to be revealed as a mysterious Layla, has something to do with the rest of the story. So far, the film works well.
The story moves to Cairo, where investigative TV reporter Charlie Cannon lives with his pregnant wife, Larissa, and their children Katie and Sebastián. Katie is friends with Layla. One morning, Katie is visited by the woman from Aswan, known as the Magician. She identifies herself as Layla's mother and uses candy to lure Katie away before kidnapping her. Charlie gives chase but loses them in a sandstorm. He and Larissa report the kidnapping to the authorities, working with an English-speaking junior detective, Dalia Zaki, while the lead detective suspects the parents. Eight years later, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Charlie, Larissa, Sebastián, and their third child, Maud, now live in the home of Larissa's Catholic mother, Carmen. In Aswan, a teenager witnesses a cargo plane carrying the sarcophagus crash. Inside, archaeologists find Katie wrapped in parchment inscribed with an ancient language. Katie, who is in a catatonic state and habitually self-harms, is moved back home with Charlie and Larissa. The family refuses to seek further medical help despite Katie's erratic behaviour, in which she frequently escapes her room and mutilates herself.
This is where the film starts to fall apart. The incidents following get more un likely to happen. The criss-cross of paths, the possession of Sebastian and Carmen at the end of the film, make littl4 sense. The horror action set pieces are, however, scary enough for a horror film. But for a lengthy over 2-hour feature, even this gets boring with nothing really freeing her that is added to the horror genre.
The film has so far received mixed reviews. Horror fans should not complain as the film delivers, but for the more discerning viewer, more is expected from this budgeted horror. The film opens in theatres on April the 10th.
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LITTLE LORRAINE (Canada 2025) ***½
Directed by Andy Hines
LITTLE LORRAINE is based on a song by Alex Baldwin. The song, which pretty much tells the whole story depicted in the film, can be heard during the closing credits of the film, so that spoilers will be revealed. Baldwin was awarded the titles of Male Artist of the Year and Musician of the Year during the Nova Scotia Music Week in 2014.
A 1986 mining explosion that left 10 men dead in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, launches this thrilling drama, inspired by a true story, that merges coastal fishing with an international cocaine smuggling ring.
With the closing of the mine, Jimmy (Stephen Amell) is suddenly out of work, just as his untrustworthy great uncle Henry (prolific Nova Scotian actor Stephen McHattie) saunters in with a business proposal: join him on his lobster fishing boat. Believing it’ll be a way to safely support his family, Jimmy also convinces his friends Tommy (Joshua Close) and Jake (Steve Lund) to join him, and very quickly, the three are rolling in the cash.
The film begins with the news of underwater mining in the waters around Cape Breton, where the audience is told that 148,000 people lived at the time. Most were miners, but the mines closed, and employment was at its lowest. The film’s very Nova Scotian, and yes, Canadian.
The film title is derived from the name of a village in Nova Scotia, located on the east coast of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is known to have had several different names in the past, such as Little Loran, Lorembec, Cap-de-Lorembec, Petit Laurenbec, and, between 1750 51, Petit Lorembec was in use. The small village is known for its rough seas and heavy fog.
But in this film, Little Lorraine, a North Atlantic seaside town with a population of 60, becomes embroiled in an international cocaine smuggling operation under the noses of multiple governments, distributed in coffins through a network of funeral homes.
The film includes a few nice touches, mostly when the Hispanic Interpol investigator (Colombian musician J. Balvin) arrives at the town. Some humour is injected at the little hotel where he stays. The conflict between the locals and the foreigners is also heightened. The audience could take either side. Should the drug smugglers be caught? Or the drug investigator be sent home. Stephen McHattie, a veteran actor of dozens of movies, plays the uncle who started it all.
“Good men don’t end up in situations like this!” says a fisherman caught up in a violent situation. Fate takes a turn, and bad or good things can happen.
A few suspenseful segments are present, too. The one where the police stop the fishing boat with the cocaine hidden on board. “We are coming on board,” says the officer.
The emotional toll also takes effect, particularly on Tommy, one of the crew members. He ends up confessing to the priest during confession. The moral issue of whether to support one’s family also comes into the equation. Also included in the story are the effects of drug use, such as cocaine use by the locals. LITTLE LORRAINE is a solid film with a good story reflecting the atmosphere and period of Cape Breton with credible performances all around.
LITTLE LORRAINE premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and opens in theatres on April 17th.
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LORNE (USA 2026) **
Directed by Morgan Neville
LORNE is a documentary on Lorne Michaels, the brains behind Saturday Night Live, the Saturday Night Live broadcast show known to fans as SNL.
The doc opens not too enthusiastically, preparing the audience to expect the worst. The audience is told that Lorne Michaels had finally agreed to be interviewed for a doc to be made. And then what does the man do? He dodges everyone, making it difficult to pin him down for a conversation. The audience is also warned that this could be the most boring documentary made, and in a way, the statement is true as the doc meanders among different topics while trying to get a footing. And the first question Michaels is asked? “What is funny?” The audience does not get the answer, not that there is a satisfactory answer to that too general a question,
SNL has always been a hit and miss, with some Saturday evening programs a complete dud. This can be compared to the much funnier but lesser known Canadian SCTV (Second City Television), which is consistently good and much funnier, though SCTV followed the footsteps of SNL.
At best, the audience sees the working of how SNL works, after the director of the doc is given unprecedented access to the man who built and sustained the institution for five decades. Shown for example, are simple procedures like updating a board and on the cardboard board are pinned the skits that work in the order that are to be performed. Many are discarded among those few selected. Lorne Michaels is one of the judges.
The performers of SNL, past and present, are seen in the doc, from the likes of the late John Belushi and Steve Farley to old favourites like Chevy Chase. A few hosts are also seen, though some very briefly, for just a glance, like Elon Musk.
The story about the pumpkin farms is the most interesting story to note. After travelling along pumpkin fields where hundreds of pumpkins are sold, there is a pumpkin stall selling pumpkins. The man asks the guy at the stall: “There are pumpkins all over the place, and I can pick any one for free. Why would I come to you to pay for a pumpkin? The reply: “Because it is I who can pick the good pumpkins.” This is analogous to Lorne Michael able to pick the best skits, the best comedy performers, and to keep the program going all this time.
A few of the skits are shown, including a weird one about a paedophile featuring a scout leader and a scout, the leader played by Alec Baldwin.
LORNE is a documentary, less a biography of Lorn Michales than a celebration of SNL. SNL has survived hard and difficult times and has quite the following, despite being unfunny, with often quite a high miss and hit ratios, though not for want of trying.
LORNe opens in theatres on April 17th. Recommended only for true SNL loyalists.
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MILE END KICKS (Canada 2025) ***
Directed by Chandler Levack
The film is called MILE END KICKS as the film is set in Mile End in Montreal (Mile End is a neighbourhood and municipal electoral district in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located in the city's Plateau-Mont-Royal borough.), and Kick refers to the shoe store where the lead singer of the band that Grace is in love with works.
The story centres on Grace Pine (Barbie Ferreira), a 24-year-old aspiring music journalist from Toronto. Feeling stuck—both creatively and personally—she moves to Montreal’s Mile End neighbourhood, hoping to reinvent herself. Her main goal is ambitious: to write a book about Alanis Morissette’s iconic album Jagged Little Pill. But from the start, she struggles: She is broke and underemployed, even though she is given an advance for writing her book. She gets distracted, she doesn’t speak French, and she feels like an outsider in a tight-knit indie scene.
Grace is not particularly what one might call a sex bomb or a ravishing beauty. One of the items on her Montreal checklist is to have sex, and she has a lot of turn-downs, a few of these used for humorous content.
Grace becomes romantically involved with both Archi and Chevy, creating a messy love triangle. Each relationship represents something different: Archi = emotional connection, artistic idealism, while Chevy = stability, realism. Rather than a neat romance, the film portrays awkward intimacy, jealousy and confusion, blurred lines between work and relationships. Though one might feel sympathy for Grace, the underdog, she is still neither an ideal nor a perfect person.
At best, the film encompasses youthful aimlessness and ambition (or they do not really know what they want), which is characteristic of every young person while navigating the intersection of art and romantic identity in a male-dominated scene. The Montreal music scene, too, is accurately enough represented.
One can hardly describe MILE END KICKS as a feel-good, entertaining movie because of its content. Yet, one must give credit to the director for trying his best (even though his protagonist is female) to keep her film realistic and effective,
MILE END KICKS is essentially a younger person’s film about a young person’s coming-of-age. It takes one individual, with many faults but with some positives as well. Most of the other characters are all youngsters, with Jay Baruchel (GOON) and Devon Bostick (from DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, both films) being the most famous of the cast.
MILE END KICKS opens in theatres April 17th.
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PANDA PLAN 2: THE MAGIC TRIBE (China 2025) ***
Directed by Derek Hui
A Jackie Chan film is almost always meant to be taken in good fun, including this one, PANDA PLAN 2: THE MAGIC TRIBE. Jackie Chan rose to fame playing drunken king-fu Masters, fighting while being drunk. comically. He is seldom meant to be taken seriously, not like the other Kung-fu actors. But Jackie Chan does not mind. At heart, he is a good-hearted soul who means no one any harm, an actor who is known to perform all his own stunts.
PANDA PLAN 2: THE MAGIC TRIBE is cartoonish, silly, goofy, but always well-meaning and entertaining. There is no swearing, and the film contains good messages for all in general. The action set pieces are decent, with Chan’s Martial-Art kills.
When lovable Panda Hu Hu and international superstar Jackie Chan stumble upon a hidden primitive tribe, Hu Hu is hailed as a “divine beast” believed to be the key to saving the tribe from disaster. As quirky warriors and magical leaders close in, Jackie must protect Hu Hu while uncovering the secrets of this mysterious land. Jackie also wants to return to the modern civilisation he is comfortable with.
The jokes can be silly, but funny too. One involves a fighter given a magic pill by the high priest so that when he fights a duel, he can get superpowers, enough to defeat a bull. The only problem is that he has to swallow the pill as a whole, not taking any water to dilute the potency. But the pill is larger than an apple. Chan always provides a laugh or two with his silly antics. And the panda, Hu Hu, featured in the film, though CGI-generated, is also cute enough to harm the audience.
PANDA PLAN 2: THE MAGIC TRIBE opens in Toronto and the GTA on April 17th.
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ROOMMATES (USA 2026) ***
Directed by Chandler Levack
ROOMMATE is a 2026 American black comedy film directed by Chandler Levack and written by Jimmy Fowlie and Ceara O'Sullivan. The film stars Sadie Sandler (the eldest daughter of Adam Sandler) and Chloe East. It tells the story of two college freshmen – one naive, the other cool and confident – who become roommates as they face different obstacles of living in the same dormitory.
A hopeful, naive college freshman, Devon (Sandler), asks the cool and confident Celeste (East)to be her roommate, seeing a blossoming friendship spiral thereafter into a war of passive aggression.
If the film’s premise sounds uninviting, one should wait a minute and look deeper. This is a Happy Gilmore production, and anything that has to do with Adam Sandler is not all that bad, unless one cannot stand him. The film stars his daughter, and the family in the film, the father uses cuss words like cunt and fuck, as the other characters do. The humour is also crude but Sandler-type funny. And the director is Canadian.
And the last time they made a black comedy about high school protagonists, they came up with a hit, Olivia Wilde’s BOOKSMART.
ROOMMATES is released on Netflix on April 17, 2026.
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WASTEMAN (UK 2025) ****
Directed by Cal McMau
The prison drama benefits from two outstanding performances. David Jonsson plays Taylor in the lead role, while Tom Blyth, last seen in the late Terence Davie 2021 drama BENEDICTION, plays the supporting role of Dee, Taylor’s new cellmate who changes everything around.
Wateman is the British slang UK for someone seen as useless or a loser, but ironically used in the film for someone toxic and destructive.
The film follows Taylor, who is relentlessly bullied and humiliated by a more dominant, aggressive peer, Dee—the kind of guy often dismissed as a “wasteman”.
Taylor, a prison cook who has been incarcerated for 13 years, is informed he is eligible for early release on the basis that he maintains good behaviour. Taylor regularly does haircuts for fellow prisoners Gaz and Paul, from whom he buys drugs to fuel his addiction. He manages to make contact with his now 14-year-old, estranged son, Adam.
While struggling to fill out the form for his release, Taylor is assigned a new cellmate, Dee, who starts selling drugs not long after his arrival, taking business away from Gaz and Paul. Taylor and Dee start to form a friendship, with Taylor opening up about how he accidentally killed a teenager by selling him drugs to provide for Adam, which landed him in prison with a manslaughter charge. Dee lets Taylor use his phone to contact Adam, also sending Adam a pair of expensive trainers via his friend on the outside as a present from Taylor. Frustrated with how Dee has taken away their control over the prison's drug trade, Gaz and Paul violently attack and beat him unconscious while Taylor stands back helplessly. Afterwards, the pair force Taylor to punch Dee, filming it to share around the prison. Dee is taken to the hospital to recover.
As the story unfolds, Taylor tries to navigate daily life under intimidation while Dee exerts control through mockery, threats, and social dominance under the pretend off freidnhip. The more Dee does for Taylor, the more control he has over Taylor. Tension builds toward a moment where the victim must decide whether to submit, escape, or retaliate. This forms the climax of the film.
Principal photography took place in London and Somerset in the summer of 2024. Filming locations included Shepton Mallet Prison. The gritty cinematography was provided by Lorenzo Levrini.
For a prison film, the script plays with a few clichés that follow the tory, and the plot thickens. But though what happens might be a bit predictable, the sheer brutal violence and tension built up for the many scenes are enough to make the audience forget the film’s flaws as they are shocked out of their seats.
WATEMAN clearly ranks as one of the most violent films of 2026, horror films included.
WASTEMAN premiered in the Centrepiece programme at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 20 February 2026 and opens at the TIFF Lightbox on April 17th.
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THE WOLVES ALWAYS COME AT NIGHT (Australia/Mongolia/Germany 2024) ***
Directed by Gabrielle Brady
THE WOLVES ALWAYS COME AT NIGHT -- Australia’s official submission for the 2026 Academy Awards for both Best International Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature -- offers a sweeping, yet deeply personal, docu-fiction set on the Mongolian steppes, chronicling one family’s displacement after climate catastrophe.
A hauntingly intimate portrait of a family forced to confront the unraveling of their world, the film follows Davaa and Zaya, a young herding couple raising four daughters in a life shaped by tradition, livestock, and the rhythms of the land. Their quiet resilience is shattered when a catastrophic climate-driven storm devastates their herd — and with it, their livelihood. Suddenly unmoored from generations of nomadic identity, the family must join the growing wave of rural migrants relocating to the fringes of Ulaanbaatar in search of survival. Blurring the boundaries between documentary and narrative cinema, Brady crafts a deeply personal docufiction drama co-scripted with Davaa and Zaya themselves, who courageously reenact their own journey of displacement. The result is both epic and intimate: a sweeping visual meditation on climate change’s human toll and a tender study of love, pride, and parental responsibility under crushing uncertainty.
The film has a documentary feel as the camera closely follows this Mongolian family of 6 (parents and four children) who have to relocate near the city after the story's tragedies, in which the herd is lost. Born to generations of herders in Mongolia’s immense Bayankhongor region, young couple Daava (Davaasuren Dagvasuren) and Zaya (Otgonzaya Dashzeveg) are raising their four children as they were brought up: with an intimate connection to the land and the animals they share their lives with.
Pressing topics like climate change and urban migration are also drawn to the story. Director Brady’s film captures the family's plight, especially when they start talking about how they miss the animals.
THE WOLVES ALWAYS COME AT NIGHT was shown at TIFF last year and premieres on FILM MOVEMENT PLUS April 17th, 2026.
