Pick of the week
Jackpot!
Bridesmaids director Paul Feig has said that Jackie Chan’s work was a touchstone for his latest film. And this breezy action comedy offers up a big dose of Chan-style slapstick stuntwork, brought to life by the smart pairing of Awkwafina and John Cena. In a near-future Los Angeles, the populace are legally allowed to kill the winner of the state’s billion-dollar lottery and claim the prize themselves – but they only have one day to do it. Awkwafina’s new-actor-in-town Katie is the latest target and soon requires the services of Cena’s nice-guy bodyguard Noel. The two make a witty double act – think a kinder, gentler DeVito and Schwarzenegger – and the plot speeds along with minimal schmaltz.
Out now, Prime Video
***
Men
With Daniel Kokotajlo’s Starve Acre due in cinemas soon, it seems that every notable British director nowadays is taking a stab at folk horror. This is Alex Garland’s attempt – a grisly, bizarre tale of misogyny woven through the fertility myths of the green man and sheela na gig. Jessie Buckley stars as Harper, who seeks respite after the death of her husband (Paapa Essiedu) at a rural holiday let. But pretty much every man in the village (all played by Rory Kinnear) – from the victim-blaming vicar to the mute, naked stalker – makes her feel in danger. Heady stuff, with an astonishing ending.
22 August, 11.05pm, Film4
***
Prizzi’s Honor
John Huston was at the heart of Hollywood’s classic studio era and this 1985 New York mafia comedy – his penultimate film – is an endearing throwback to those times. Jack Nicholson’s stolid hitman Charley and his desirable, devious love-at-first-sight Irene (Kathleen Turner) could easily have been played by Bogart and Bacall back in the day. Their affair – and Irene’s theft from the Prizzi family – causes friction and resentment, not least from Charley’s former flame, Maerose (a superbly sly Anjelica Huston). Beware the daughter of a mob boss scorned …
17 August, 9pm, Comedy Central
***
Predator
In the middle of an increasingly popular run of pumped-up, quip-ready action hero movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger made what may be his purest attempt at the form. John McTiernan’s 1987 sci-fi adventure sees Arnie play Vietnam veteran Dutch, whose band of paramilitaries (including Carl Weathers and Jesse Ventura) are stalked by a near-invisible extraterrestrial trophy hunter while on a rescue mission in a Central American rainforest. The interplay of tension and action is well done, while Arnie and his muscles are put through their paces.
17 August, 11.05pm, Film4
***
Strangers on a Train
This 1951 thriller by Alfred Hitchcock, adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s first novel, is a fine example of the director’s strengths. There’s the suspense that never lets up, as Farley Granger’s tennis pro Guy meets the conspiratorial Bruno (a gleefully louche Robert Walker) and finds himself trapped in a “perfect murder” plot – Bruno will kill Guy’s estranged wife, and Guy is meant to shoot the other’s father in return. Then there are the recurring motifs (spectacles, lighters), an academic-baiting subtext (homoeroticism) and cameos from not just one but two Hitchcocks.
18 August, 12.20pm, BBC Two
***
The Mask
Jim Carrey built on the success of Ace Ventura with another vehicle for his trickster screen persona. There’s even an explicit nod to Loki in Chuck Russell’s 1994 comedy, as Carrey’s dependable but dull bank clerk Stanley dons a mysterious old mask he finds in the river and is transformed into a green-faced, superhuman pleasure-seeker. There’s a big Looney Tunes influence in Stanley’s Jekyll and Hyde pursuit of Cameron Diaz’s mob girlfriend, with cartoonish pratfalls and a high gag rate.
18 August, 4.30pm, BBC One
***
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” So says a newspaperman in John Ford’s 1962 western, which teams up two of the big beasts of the genre – James Stewart and John Wayne – for a yarn in which the march of civilisation is scrappy and less than honourable. Stewart’s tyro lawyer arrives in the town of Shinbone with a vision of bringing democracy to the wild west, but Lee Marvin’s robber Liberty has other plans, while Wayne’s cowboy is caught between the rule of law and the survival of the fittest. A classic of its kind.
22 August, 1.55am, Sky Cinema Greats
