Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Mark Thomas REVIEW - THE MERCYI will admit this was not the usual film I would watch, but honestly to get away from the Marvel and DC universe I had to try something else, something different, something simpler, so.........Based on a true story Colin Firth is excellent in this story of the first man to circumnavigate the world alone in a sailing boat, or was he? (no spoilers).The exceptional part of this film for me was the story being told at home, the effects the fathers absence had on the family. Many films concentrate on the story arch of the main character and forget the other story which should be told equally but through the eyes of those being effected by the main character, this film does just that.Charming, intelligent British made film which is enjoyable to watch, excellent for a Sunday afternoon or mid-week evening, regardless if you like to sail or not.Set in 1968 - 1969 the stand out moment for me was the speech given by the mother on her doorstep to the assembled press, still relevant today!One issue I have, not with this film but with British firms in general is the very limited showing, films only being shown in certain cinemas for a few days even though being advertised and promoted, why?Making a film is expensive so I personally would have thought the idea of having it shown in all cinemas and for more than just one or two days would be a necessity for the studio to get its money back or even make a profit, but for some reason with British films this doesn't seem the case. 2 other British films that recently also have also fallen into this category, 'Ghost Stories and Cargo', both films I missed while on at a very limited cinema release for less than a week each!Rating 7 out of 10

Jake Young Colin Firth takes lead in this incredible story based on true events of amateur sailor Donald Crowhurst's attempt to circumnavigate the globe single-handedly on his self-designed trimaran, as part of the Sunday Times Golden Globe race. Under the pressure of a publicity agent hyping his story to exceeding proportions, expecting sponsors and the self-applied noose of possible debt should he not finish the race, mounts the struggle of Donald Crowhurst to the highest proportions.Giving this movie its backbone is the heavy emotional weight throughout, director James Marsh turns an otherwise quite controversial person and event into a sympathetic and quite touching story. It's a story that today needs to be told more, one of the pressures that men face and their inability to talk out about them. It's this coupled with the terrific pacing and structure of The Mercy that allows the audience to connect to Donald Crowhurst, as a dreamer and as somebody who had misfortunes that he was unable to deal with alone. It's only reinforced by the excellent performances given by Rachel Weisz and Colin Firth, that add a much-needed soulful and human touch to the film and grounding it for the audience, whereas a misplaced casting choice might have resulted in a far less captivating story.However, while the story is one that is sure to hold a sympathetic gaze, what the film fails to achieve and execute properly is demonstrating how truly isolated and consumed with pressure Donald Crowhurst was. The film needed more time, this would have allowed further scenes of Donald on the boat so that much like The Life of Pi or even Castaway the audience could have tapped into that isolation. Instead, the film edits back and forth the boat and Crowhurst's family, this does, of course, keep the emotional tension high but dramatically it is weak, never buying into Crowhurst's isolated madness it puts the film on a weak footing. This might not have been a huge issue if the story's focal point was elsewhere but it's not, the most crucial part of the story is the pressure and isolation that Donald faced on the boat, it sacrifices a highly layered look into Donald Crowhurst for its emotional tension. The film needed less time reinforcing emotional backdrop and more time heightening the dramatic point of the story.The Mercy is a film that depending on what you came to see, you will enjoy it more or less. The emotional backdrop is orchestrated perfectly, never missing a beat and tapping the audience into the supportive and hearty theme but the dramatic focal point of the film is underplayed and does not do much in the way of aiding the audience in its comprehending of Donald Crowhurst.

bob-the-movie-man It's 1968. Donald Crowhurst (Colin Firth, "Kingsman: The Golden Circle"; "Magic in the Moonlight"), an amateur sailor and entrepreneur based in Teignmouth, Devon, is inspired by listening to single-handed round-the-world yachtsman Sir Francis Chichester and does a a crazy thing. He puts his business, his family's house and his own life on the line by entering the Sunday Times single-handed round-the-world yacht race. It's not even as if he has a boat built yet! Lending him the money, under onerous terms, are local businessman Mr Best (Ken Stott, "The Hobbit") and local newspaper editor Rodney Hallworth (David Thewlis, "Wonder Woman", "The Theory of Everything"). With the race deadline upon him, Crowhurst is pressed into sailing away from his beloved wife Clare (Rachel Weisz, "Denial", "The Lobster") and young family in a trimaran that is well below par. But what happens next is so ludicrous that it makes a mockery of whoever wrote this ridiculous work of fiction. Ah... but wait a minute... it's a true story!It is in fact such an astonishing story that this is a film that is easy to spoil in a review, a fact that seems to have passed many UK newspaper reviewers by (aarrrggghhh!!). So I will leave much comment to a "spoiler section" on http://bob-the-movie-man.com. The trailer is also best avoided: this is honestly a film worth seeing cold.What can I say that is spoiler-free then? Firth and Weisz make a well-matched couple, and the rest of the cast is peppered with well-known faces from British film and (particularly) TV: Andrew Buchan and Jonathan Bailey (from "Broadchurch"); Mark Gatiss ("Sherlock", "Out Kind of Traitor"); Adrian Schiller ("Victoria"; "Beauty and the Beast").The first part of the film is well executed and excellent value for older viewers. 60's Devon is warm, bucolic and nostalgic. In fact, the film beautifully creates the late 60's of my childhood, from the boxy hardwood furniture of the Crowhurst's house to the Meccano set opened at Christmas time. Once afloat though, the film is less successful at getting its sea-legs. The story is riveting, but quite a number of the scenes raise more questions than they answer. As stress takes hold it is perhaps not surprising that there are a few fantastical flights of movie fancy. But some specific elements in Scott Burns' script don't quite gel: a brass clock overboard is a case in point. What? Why?And it seems to be light on the fallout from the race: there is a weighty scene in the trailer between Best and Hallworth that (unless I dozed off!) I don't think appeared in the final cut, and I think was needed. All in all, I was left feeling mildly dissatisfied: a potentially good film by "Theory of Everything" director James Marsh that rather goes off the rails in the final stretch. This was a time where morality and honour were often rigidly adhered to - British "stiff upper lip" and all that - and seemed to carry a lot more weight than they do today. So some of the decisions in the film might mystify younger viewers. But for the packed older audience in my showing then it was a gripping, stressful, but far from flawless watch. I'd also like to take this opportunity to pay my respects to the film's composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, who shockingly died last week at the ridiculously young age of 48. His strange and atmospheric music for films including "The Theory of Everything", "Sicario" and (particularly) "Arrival" set him on the path to be a film composing great of the future. Like James Horner, another awful and untimely loss to the film music industry.(For the full graphical review - and a spoiler section for those who have seen the film - please visit bob-the-movie-man.com. Thanks).

annaebithell When people disappear often it is with very little trace, the world and the person's family are left wondering what happened to them, where they were and whether they will ever see them again. This was not what happened in the case of Donald Crowhurst.On October 31st 1968 Crowhurst set out on a great expedition around the world, alone, on a boat as part of the Sunday Times' Golden Globe Competition. On July 10th 1969 his boat was found, unoccupied filled with log books written by Crowhurst describing his entire journey.The Mercy is the latest telling of this real story, there having been many books, documentaries, and films made prior to it. Directed by James Marsh, written by Scott Z. Burns and with Colin Firth in the lead role this film tells the tragedy from beginning to end, presenting Crowhurst's experience as well as his wife and children's and the tale being told to the general public by the media. Visually stunning, well acted and tear-jerking, I loved this film for its sincerity and quietness allowing us into the head of a man struggling through crisis.Firth felt perfectly cast. He brought amazing subtlety to the role, his ability to convey the internal thoughts of the character simply through facial expression and gait shows his phenomenal ability as an actor. He shows the break down of Crowhurst's British 'stiff upper lip' and descent into mental breakdown with constraint and melancholia. This powerful performance bought me to tears, greatly aided by clever slow reveal cinematography and eerie sound design.And that's something I have to talk about in this film; sound design. An often neglected and unrecognised art this film used sound and silence phenomenally. It created suspense, fear and empathy; as the film progressed both the sound and silence became deafening, adding immensely to our understanding of Crowhurst's mental state. Until this film I never new how maddening simply the sound of a pencil rolling back and forth across a table could be.If I have one gripe about this film it must be this; we have yet another example of the female lead feeling under-developed and two dimensional. Although Rachel Weisz's performance as Claire Crowhurst, Donald's wife, was emotional and, too an extent, felt realistic, she looked as if she'd been plucked off a 50's fashion magazine titled 'The housewife'. This is not a criticism of Weisz as an actress but more in the direction and writing. She felt like a cartoon-ish, cardboard cut out of a woman; dressed fashionably, young and beautiful and glossy. She did not feel like the wife of a failing business owner. Personally I feel the film should've spent more time on her developing her emotional depth and character arch making the story about the entire family, or they should've had even less of her, focusing solely on Crowhurst himself. It generally felt as if they couldn't decide if Claire (and a few other of the people back on land) were main characters, supporting roles or extras, so their balance of screen time was wrong.Despite this, one of my favourite things about this film is it's beautiful sense of reality in Crowhurst himself. There is too often in all films, but significantly in biopics or the beloved based-on-a-true-story films, a tendency to paint characters as all hero or all villain. Here however Firth portrays Crowhurst as a real man; loving, over-ambitious, determined and deeply flawed but not malicious, not conniving. A director could've chosen to paint this man, this non-fictitious man, it the light or good or evil but no. Marsh chose real. And with such a sensitive story to portray this felt the most appropriate voice to give the sailor and his family. He was a real man, struggling with his sense of self, put in the face of an adversity that he could not escape. He did not succeed and win the day, he did not purposely deceive them all as part of a horrible plot, he simply.. broke. And this film showed that amazingly well.