Ghostbusters (12A)
Directed by Paul Feig
4/5
WITH far too many sequels currently cluttering up cinemas, it’s a pleasure to savour a remake or, rather, a riotous gender-change cinematic reboot.
Director and co-writer Paul Feig drolly revamps the 1984 supernatural comedy hit, replacing testosterone with oestrogen to transform Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones into a hilarious ghost-busting quartet.
Having proved his comic touch with Bridesmaids and Spy, Feig wisely plays fair and funny with the original as he sends his zany spectre-slayers into action to save the Big Apple — and the world, of course — from the gallery of grisly ghosts attacking the city.
Feig’s emphasis is firmly on
paranormal thrills and wild comedy and he delivers lashings of both, while decorating proceedings with stunning special effects that bring the zany apparitions to spectacular life.
Verbally and visually it’s fast and fun and there are some smart lines, memorably when Wiig tells the Big Apple boss: “Please don’t be like the mayor in Jaws.”
With cameos by the original’s stars Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson, as well as Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts, this is an enjoyable, no-strain-on-the-brain comic caper.
Alan Frank

The Hard Stop (15)
Directed by George Amponsah
4/5
THIS powerful and intimate documentary reveals who the real Mark Duggan was.
His killing by police in August 2011 sparked some of the worst civil unrest in recent British history and George Amponsah’s film shows how his death affected his friends and family.
More importantly, it provides a valuable insight into why the residents of Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham, London, feel disenfranchised and have come to distrust and hate the police.
Over 24 months, the film follows Duggan’s childhood friends Marcus and Kurtis, who all grew up on Broadwater Farm, as they deal with bereavement, imprisonment, unemployment and the controversial findings of the judicial inquiry into Duggan’s killing.
The news reports of his shooting and the debate over who he was play out in the background as Amponsah, through observational video, concentrates on the impact on his best friends and his family, including his fiancee and their four children.
The presence of Duggan permeates their heartbreaking testimonies.
In the words of Martin Luther King: “A riot is the language of the unheard” and this hard-hitting and sobering documentary provides those previously silent with a much-needed voice.
Maria Duarte

Men & Chicken (15)
Directed by Ander Thomas Jensen
4/5
DESPITE being produced by M&M productions, this is no gratuitous exercise in product placement.
But there is an unexpected sweetness in Ander Thomas Jensen’s fascinating black comedy that becomes increasingly addictive as it unfolds.
Weird brothers Elias (Mads Mikkelsen) and Gabriel (David Dencik) have only one thing in common — their harelips. And they are, respectively, prone to excessive masturbation and constant vomiting.
Learning that they were adopted, they head for a remote island inhabited by their father to discover their origins and are pitchforked into a scenario so extraordinary that Snow White seems grittily realistic by comparison.
Jensen colourfully charts their increasingly bizarre experiences among hare-lipped siblings and delivers a riveting amalgam of Frankenstein and The Island of Dr Moreau.
His own unique additions are adorned with a narrative that grips, shocks and amuses in equal measures from start to finish.
Alan Frank