Now You See Me (2013)

Highly entertaining but totally unfeasible thriller. 

Four street magicians are brought together by a criminal mastermind to pull off large-scale tricks – such as robbing a bank in another country – as part of their glitzy stage show. 

It’s an unusual concept and it just about works, provided that you never question a sequence of highly unlikely scenarios in which the magicians exercise almost god-like powers. You also need to overlook a couple of enormous plot holes.

Mark Ruffalo is appealing as FBI agent Dylan Rhodes, and Mélanie Laurent is likeable as French Interpol agent Alma Dray. Morgan Freeman is a little silly as a professional debunker of tricks. Michael Caine doesn't have enough to do as a dodgy insurance magnate. The magicians themselves – played by Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco – are a little too slick and self-satisfied. They can behave like superheroes, and we could have been given more of a sense of their motivations. 

The film is itself a sort of magic trick and it keeps you guessing to the end. It’s very silly indeed – but fun.

Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009)

Flawed romantic comedy. 

Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) is a New York journalist who is addicted to buying fashionable clothes. She ends up working as a finance columnist for Successful Saving magazine in a role where her lack of knowledge or pretension is welcomed as a refreshing asset. Meanwhile, she also falls in love with her boss (Hugh Dancy, as a sort of fifth-rate Hugh Grant) and tries to avoid a debt collector. 

The film has many failings and it’s a bit of a muddled mess in terms of its views on consumerism. It can’t decide whether it’s a critique or a celebration. That said, it’s a little unfair that it was criticised for being tone deaf to the fall-out of the global financial crisis. Is it really the film’s job to reflect the changing economic and political landscape?

Pretty much everything about Confessions of a Shopaholic is clumsy and awkward, and in particular Rebecca’s parents – annoyingly and bizarrely portrayed by John Goodman and Joan Cusack. Kristin Scott Thomas seems out of place, too. The major plus is Isla Fisher, who has a real radiance. Each time she smiles, she lights up the whole film and transforms a mediocre scene into something full of charm and charisma.

Definitely, Maybe (2008)

A sweet and tender romantic drama directed by Adam Brooks. 

A young girl (Abigail Brealin) quizzes her political consultant father (Ryan Reynolds) about his love life prior to her birth and his subsequent divorce. In flashback, we see three interconnected romance stories – his relationships with his college sweetheart (Elizabeth Banks), a friend she had a brief fling with (Rachel Weisz) and a fellow worker on the Bill Clinton political campaign (Isla Fisher). 

Structurally, it’s reminiscent of a Woody Allen film and could even be seen as a sort of homage. In lesser hands it could have been formulaic, but it’s actually very touching. I found it romantic and hugely enjoyable. 

The closing theme, Badly Drawn Boy’s ‘The Time of Times’, strikes exactly the right note of reflection and poignancy.

Bachelorette (2012)

So-called comedy that didn’t make me laugh even once.

Three friends who seem to have nothing in common (Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan and Isla Fisher) plan a pre-wedding party for their school pal Becky (Rebel Wilson), formerly known as “Pigface” because of her weight. Then they accidentally ruin her dress and have a night of silly adventures while trying to fix it. Yes, it really is as unfunny as that sounds. 

Writer and director Leslye Headland, adapted Bachelorette from a play, but it’s difficult to see how such weak material could have worked on stage. The characters are cruel and unengaging, vain and unlikeable. Maybe it’s meant to be titillating that they take so much cocaine, but they are too annoying to seem anything other than shallow and poorly drawn. That goes for the vacuous, self-obsessed male characters they interact with too. 

I was especially disappointed with Dunst and Fisher, who usually impress in their other films.

Greed (2019)

Anything directed by Michael Winterbottom and starring Steve Coogan is worth watching – see also Twenty-Four Hour Party People, A Cock and Bull Story or The Trip.

Wiki politely calls this “A satire on wealth, centred around a billionaire high-street fashion mogul’s 60th birthday on the Greek island Mykonos.” Others have suggested it is based on the life and career of Philip Green. Arrogant, ruthless and teeth-whitened, Steve Coogan is utterly convincing as the brusque bully in the lead role – Sir Richard “Greedy” McCreadie – as is Isla Fisher as his ex-wife. David Mitchell is perhaps too shy and indecisive as the biographer, although it makes sense that someone more ruthless would be denied access to such a controlling figure. 

There are several interwoven strands:
• The life of the entrepreneur, from school days to the present.
• The build-up and aftermath of his outlandish, stupidly expensive themed party.
• A look at (mostly dysfunctional) personal relationships: father/son, husband/wife, husband/ex-wife, employer/employee.
• A vain daughter attempting to be the star of her own reality-TV show.
• A biographer attempting to research the life of McCreadie.
• A savage satire on wealth and success.
• A searing condemnation of the way the fashion industry is built on a brutally exploited slave underclass.

It does all this and manages to be funny. There’s high drama, too: I certainly didn’t predict the way the party would end...

At the closing credits, the film presents you with some sobering statistics about the pitiful wages people get paid working in sweatshops.