The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)

Written and directed by Mark Herman, this is an adaptation of a novel by John Boyne set in Poland during World War II. 

The eight-year-old son of a Nazi officer disobeys his parents and befriends a child held prisoner in a death camp. The story hinges on the boy not understanding what the place is (he thinks it’s a “farm”), and it’s painful to see the consequences of his naivety play out to their inevitable conclusion. 

Vera Famiga isn’t at her best playing the child’s mother, and David Thewlis doesn’t really excel as his Nazi father. It’s a somewhat simplistic account of events that seems geared towards younger viewers. And it was criticised for framing the tragedy around the officer’s family rather than the wider tragedy of the true victims of Nazi persecution.

15 Minutes (2001)

A fundamentally misconceived thriller that somehow stars Robert De Niro. It’s an extremely heavy-handed satire about fame and the media that fails on multiple levels. 

Two eastern European criminals arrive in New York City. (They are portrayed in a crassly simplistic, racist manner.) The pair want to be famous, and will commit murder to achieve that. Meanwhile, a detective (De Niro) and a fire investigator (Edward Burns) team up to catch them. 

There are lots of unexpected twists – not because the film is well-plotted, but because it’s a sprawling mess. Certain threads are never resolved, such as the fate of Vera Farmiga’s character. She’s meant to be the love interest, but she’s quietly sent away rather than being allowed to develop her relationship with Burns’ character. 

The biggest flaw of all is the two criminals, who are woefully one-dimensional and presumably intended to be semi-comedic (the tone of the film is especially uneven). One of them video-tapes everything they do, thereby incriminating them. Maddeningly, the film presents some of the action through their camera footage – a gimmick that very quickly wears thin. This camcorder view of the violence also seems like exactly the sort of sensationalist rubbish the film claims to be satirising. It’s way dumber than it thinks it is. 

There’s also a silly plot about a true-crime TV show presented by Kelsey Grammer (of Frasier) that feels like a different film entirely. 

It’s frustrating because De Niro, Burns and Farmiga are all on good form, and some of their scenes are highly watchable. It’s as if director John Herzfeld sub-contracted some of the work, so jarring and uneven are the various different kinds of film clumsily cobbled together for the final edit.

Source Code (2011)

Mind-bending sci-fi thriller. 

The plot is extremely difficult to summarise, but here goes: a U.S. Army Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) finds himself on a train journey into Chicago. The eight minutes that he experiences ends in a terrorist explosion that kills all of the passengers on board. He is forced to relive the same eight-minute stretch of time again and again until he can find the bomber and prevent the disaster. Meanwhile, in the intervals between each attempt he comes to in what seems like a helicopter cockpit, where he is advised and manipulated by a mysterious military unit led by Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright, who need him to succeed in his mission to prevent a series of even worse terrorist incidents. 

In narrative terms there’s a Groundhog Day element – the idea of repeating the same moments until you get them right – but the tone and feel are completely different. This is tense, taut and suspenseful, with a humanity that makes it more appealing than you might expect a tech thriller to be. 

Michelle Monaghan plays the woman he’s sat opposite on the train, who he falls for and wants to save. It’s complicated but the storytelling is excellently handled and it’s far more lucid than the summary above might suggest.

In 2018, Very Farmiga would show up again in an oddly similar train-terrorist thriller called The Commuter.

Safe House (2012)

Ryan Reynolds plays Matt Weston, a CIA officer stationed at a safe house in South Africa. His relatively quiet life is shattered by the arrival of Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), a CIA operative gone rogue. Weston plans to deliver Frost to the agency, but slowly becomes aware that his faith in the integrity of that institution may be founded. 

This is a slick, efficient thriller that seems somewhat derivative. Certainly the Jason Bourne films were a major influence. Washington has presence; Reynolds less so. Better than either is Vera Farmiga as Catherine Linklater, the one CIA operative who doesn’t seem to be corrupt.

Plot-wise it’s all a little predictable. Of course the CIA bosses turn out to be baddies – a twist you could guess within just a few minutes. I also didn’t really enjoy the excessively filtered visuals, which at times masked what was actually going on. But it’s an enjoyable romp nonetheless.

The Departed (2006)

Directed by Martin Scorsese, this remarkable crime thriller is as good as any. 

In Boston. Irish Mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) places Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) as a spy within the police force. Sullivan quickly rises up the ranks, becoming a highly respected detective, and protects Costello by feeding him information. Meanwhile, the police assign undercover agent Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) to infiltrate Costello’s criminal gang. And both of them end up dating the same police psychologist (Vera Farmiga as Dr. Madolyn Madden). 

It’s incredibly clever. The plot moves fast enough to make your head spin, but Scorsese’s storytelling gifts are such that it works. 

The all-star cast also includes Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone and Mark Wahlberg. The soundtrack is terrific, although a repeat use of the intro to “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones in the same scene seems like an error. 

As usual with Scorsese, you get everything – a masterclass in film-making. The characters are richly fleshed out. It’s thrilling. It looks visually stunning. And the script is really sharp.

The Commuter (2018)

Former New York cop Michael MacCauley (Liam Neeson) has taken the same daily train in and out of the city, morning and evening, for 10 years. On the day he loses his insurance job, he is approached by a stranger (Vera Farmiga), who recruits him to commit a crime in exchange for money. 

This is a taut action thriller directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, who also made 2014’s Non-Stop. In fact, it’s quite similar in many ways: Neeson confined to a speeding vehicle while needing to solve a mystery to save his own life – and the lives of others. 

It’s both silly and exciting, and it keeps you guessing to the end. Sam Neill is underused as a police chief, and Elizabeth McGovern is underused as MacCauley’s wife.

 Neeson looks really old. He was about 65 at the time, and seems increasingly unlikely as an action hero by this point. But he does have charisma and there’s something compelling about watching him yet again work his way out of a fix.

Up in the Air (2009)

Drama (with just a hint of romantic comedy) about a man (George Clooney) who travels the USA to fire people. Despite the upsetting nature of his work, he loves his life of transience and deliberately avoids attachments. That all changes when he meets Alex (Vera Farmiga) and, despite everything, falls in love with her. Will he get in touch with his sensitive side and finally settle down?

There are two parallel plots: he begins to re-engage with his estranged family owing to an unexpected role at his sister’s wedding. And he is accompanied on his travels by his colleague Natalie (Anna Kendrick), who aims to implement a video-conferencing facility that will remove the need for him to sack people face to face, therefore threatening his untethered travelling existence.

Without wishing to spoil the ending, it doesn’t pan out the way you might expect.

It’s a witty and intelligent script and the bland, faceless, corporate aspects are so well observed that you begin to understand their seductive appeal.

Clooney is perfect in the part of the endlessly charming but rootless HR “terminator” getting to know his emotions.