Seven (1995)

Atmospheric thriller directed by David Fincher. 

A serial killer embarks on a sequence of murders, each of which marks one of the seven deadly sins. Detectives Somerset and Mills (Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt) try to catch him before he can complete the full cycle. 

It’s brilliantly shot, in a noirish manner. The constant rainfall, the grim urban settings and the claustrophobic streets all add atmosphere. Unexpectedly, and presumably for contrast, the film’s tense climax happens in wide-open spaces in bright sunlight. 

Gwyneth Paltrow plays Mills’ wife and is clearly going to have a more important function in the story. Kevin Spacey plays the “intelligent” killer – possibly partly influenced by Anthony Hopkins as the intellectual Hannibal Lector. 

The closing section is slightly far-fetched in the way that the killer is allowed to dictate the terms to the detectives. But it’s still a tense and compelling story that escalates to a satisfying conclusion.

Million Dollar Baby (2004)

 

Clint Eastwood directed, co-produced and scored the music for what may be the greatest film he’s ever been associated with. This is an incredibly powerful and moving drama.

Clint plays boxing coach Frankie, who reluctantly begins training a woman – Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) for the first time. Maggie comes from a poor background and her family is heartless and manipulative. Frankie represents the father she lacks, while Maggie fills a space in Frankie’s life caused by his estranged daughter. It seems like it’s going to be a boxing drama, but it takes on a far more personal and upsetting direction in the final third.

The writing and characterisation is brilliant, full of tenderness, compassion and nuance. 

Morgan Freeman delivers a career-best performance as Eddie Dupris, the gym assistant and a former boxer.

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.

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Directed by Ben Affleck, and based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, this is a brilliant, extremely gritty thriller that’s also a moving domestic drama. 

Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan play a couple who agree to investigate a missing girl in a poor part of Boston. They do so in parallel with the police, who are led by Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman. 

There are plenty of surprises as the plot twists and turns, but the resolution is satisfying and none of the threads collapse under scrutiny – as tends to happen with lesser storylines. 

One criticism: a lot of the dialogue is difficult to make out.

Invictus (2009)

Directed by Clint Eastwood, this film tells the story of the Springbok rugby team in South Africa and how their profile was boosted with the support and encouragement of Nelson Mandela. They went on to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup, boosting notions of racial harmony in the process. 

Matt Damon plays the team captain and Morgan Freeman plays Mandela.

While Freeman’s impersonation of the president may be accurate, there’s something about this old man playing another old man that ends up being ponderous and extremely dull. It could be his slow speaking manner or the rather flat way the scenes are directed, but the first half feels slow and laboured. Also, Matt Damon’s character is hardly developed at all. He’s highly watchable, but he doesn’t have much to get behind in terms of the role. His girlfriend and family are even sketchier. Also, the racial stuff seems simplistically handled. 

On the plus side, things improve a lot once the actual rugby begins. The final is exciting and dynamic in a way that little else in the film is.

Outbreak (1995)

Disaster film detailing the outbreak of a deadly virus brought from Zaire to the USA by an infected monkey. Army virologist Dustin Hoffman and scientist Rene Russo play a divorced couple who team up again in their attempts to save the world. They are helped by Kevin Spacey but hindered by army generals played by Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland. 

It’s a fast-paced thriller that’s a little trashy but nevertheless exciting. A surprising number of helicopters feature, with James Bond-like copter chases providing some of the action. Unlike Contagion, it’s not especially illuminating in regard to the Covid-19 pandemic. The focus is more on the military response to the problem rather than individuals’ experience of it.

Script-wise it could have been stronger, but there’s so much happening, so quickly, that you don’t really notice.

Lucy (2014)

Generally entertaining but extremely silly sci-fi thriller. 

Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) gains extraordinary mental and physical abilities when the full capacity of her brain is unleashed by a wonder drug. Unfortunately, a bunch of South Korean gangsters want to kill her. Morgan Freeman, meanwhile, plays a well-meaning scientist who tries to help her. 

The plot, which includes dinosaurs and time travel, only works if you go along with the premise that unlocking brain power would essentially make you a superhero. And as with superhero films, it suffers from a problem – that is, once anything is possible, nothing really works as drama. Someone who can do anything is no longer a protagonist you can relate to. 

The main draw is the visual flair that director Luc Besson brings. It looks imaginative and psychedelic even if it makes little real sense. There’s also a lot of violence that we could probably have done without. 

A far stronger film on a similar topic is Limitless (2011), which not only keeps to its own “rules” but also creates engaging characters you can actually relate to.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Moving drama based on the story by Stephen King. An innocent man (Tim Robbins) is imprisoned for a double murder he did not commit. In jail he has a profound effect on those around him – in particular, his friend Red (Morgan Freeman). But the ongoing brutality and corruption of the staff means that he’s intent on finding his freedom.

I like the way it’s deliberately paced slowly to mirror the slowness of prison life. You can feel the decades dripping past, but it’s never boring. I also like the way it’s uplifting without being trite or sentimental. Indeed, there’s plenty of violence to balance any cuteness.

Tim Robbins has a quiet magnetism about him. He says little but he makes every word count. 

I also like the way that the escape itself makes up only a tiny part of the overall drama. The real story is about incarceration and friendship.

Unforgiven (1992)

Western. 

Clint Eastwood plays William Munny, who was once a dangerous outlaw but who has now cleaned up and settled down to lead a quieter life. His wife has died but he's looking after his young children and working on his small farm. When he decides to take on one last job he finds himself back in trouble, and before long he’s drinking and killing again. 

In some ways this is a film designed to appeal to old people, with ageing actors and ageing tropes. Eastwood plays alongside Morgan Freeman (his partner), Gene Hackman (a slightly crazy sheriff) and Richard Harris ("English Bob"). It cleverly examines the myth of the cowboy while also showing the grim reality of the truth behind it, i.e., bullets actually hurt and there’s no glory in taking a man’s life. There’s a certain irony in Clint Eastwood presenting that message after making so many cowboy films, but you hope he was aware of that.

Oblivion (2013)

Derivative, shallow sci-fi starring Tom Cruise. I probably wouldn’t have bought this DVD, but I watched it because I found it being given away on a wall. 

The plot is rather confused, but Google usefully summarises it as follows: “Jack Harper, a drone repairman stationed on Earth that has been ravaged by war with extraterrestrials, questions his identity after rescuing the woman who keeps appearing in his dreams.”

That woman is Olga Kurylenko, who, like Cruise, hardly gets any dialogue at all. Another barely filled-in, completely thrown-away character is played by Morgan Freeman, who struggles to convey the grizzled leader of a band of human survivors. 

There are so many things wrong with Oblivion:

• As usual, Tom Cruise is a good-at-everything action-hero dullard who manages to save the world single-handedly. It’s Top Gun all over again. 

• In the absence of dialogue – or any kind of personality – Tom spends much of the film staring moodily yet conveying little emotion.

• Almost every element is borrowed from another sci-fi film. 

• We visit the remains of what used to be New York, but it’s nothing but lush, clean and green vistas. Where’s all the rubble and filth? Could it be transformed that thoroughly in just 60 years?

• There are plot holes aplenty. Best not to ask many questions. 

• Attempts to be “philosophical” end up hollow and self-conscious. 

• When we finally meet the alien presence, it’s a huge let-down. 

• The title has absolutely nothing to do with anything in the film. It's like they wanted a high-impact, single-word title, but all of the relevant words had already been taken.