Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 40 minutes, Director – Corin Hardy

After using an Aztec death whistle a group of high schoolers find their deaths hunting them down early.

With its tongue firmly out of its cheek Whistle is a call back to 90s group horrors where we’d see the central group of students picked off one-by-one by whatever form death took in that particular film. Final Destination may be the franchise that most comes to mind in the case of director Corin Hardy’s latest, written by Owen Egerton, as the future deaths of a group of high school students start to chase them down early after an Aztec death whistle is blown near them.

Chrys (Dafne Keen) is new to town and gets off to a rocky start when settling in at school, when the former star basketball player’s locker is given to her after he burns alive in the shower. After finding the death whistle in her locker its origins are investigated during a group detention, before a pool party/ essay writing session leads to it being used. Soon the group of five students are on the run from a series of enjoyably bloody, if slightly distractingly CG, splatter.

The kills are certainly entertaining and once into the swing of them there’s an enjoyment to be found from how Hardy builds up to them, instead of drawing them out. It again shows the 90s influences on Whistle while not feeling wholly dated or of the time as deaths lead to the mystery of how to stop them from catching up with the ensemble characters. Yet, when it comes to this resolution there’s the feeling that the film has been so focused on its build-up and keeping that going that by the time the third act comes around it suddenly runs out of steam. There’s still an entertainment factor, but one that’s not as strong or certain as there’s less room for the more upfront, casual deaths due to the narrative having a firmer grip on the reins.

Hardy manages to help see things through, with help from likable performances from Keen and those around Chrys, with particular focus on Ali Skovebye’s Grace as the girl she quickly gains a crush on. However, amongst the slightly faster pace of the third act’s events the feeling of steam having been lost is still felt as the film tries to wrap things up without being too brief about them. Generally, this manages to work with things clocking in at 1 hour and 40 minutes which largely go by fairly quickly.

Whistle appears to be largely made as a slice of horror simply to be enjoyed for its tension and gnarly kills. And with those it manages to pass the time fairly well. The tension may not be anything particularly grand, but there’s an entertaining suspense as we sit and wait to see the next death unfold, and just how that will happen. With that as a base the film works fine enough, even if it does sometimes show signs of being just a bit thin when it runs out of steam or seems to be finding a way to get the next character towards their usually amusing death.

While it can seem thin and as if it runs out of steam there’s enough within the 90s horror callback of Whistle to create enough amusement in the increasingly bloody deaths to see it through its run-time.

Cert – 15, Run-time – 2 hours 20 minutes, Director – Bart Layton

The pattern of a thief’s (Chris Hemsworth) heists leads multiple parties towards him as new relationships start to tangle with each other and his criminal activities.

The inspiration of 90s crime flicks are all over Bart Layton’s follow-up to his slickly messy heist docudrama American Animals. Many have pointed to Heat as a key influence, but there are conventions from many major titles of the decade in this slight throwback film to that era. The writer-director is juggling a number of different characters as he follows thief Mike (Chris Hemsworth) as he starts to try and inch out of committing jewel heists for Nick Nolte’s ‘Money.’ While Money hires a young biker with much more abrupt and violent tendencies (Barry Keoghan) to deal with his other source, Mike also has Mark Ruffalo’s looked-down-upon Detective Lou Lubesnick hot on his tail after noticing a series of patterns in his heists.

As the pair get closer to Hemsworth’s lead he finds himself forming a possible romantic relationship with Monica Barbaro’s Maya, while also forming schemes with undermined insurance broker Sharon (Halle Berry), perhaps for one last big job for the both of them. At any one time Layton appears to have three things happening at once in a film packed with characters, and stars. While often two of these strands have enough push and detail to hold engagement the third, which changes throughout, feels like something of an afterthought, causing it to lag behind.

It’s a problem that becomes more evident the longer the film goes on. And at just under two-and-a-half hours it definitely feels at least 25 minutes too long. Momentum may still be held, especially in closer interactions between Mike and Lou as the journeys and investigations of both characters have tangled and overlapped numerous times before without coming face-to-face thanks to the ways in which characters lead one to the other and work into each other’s perspectives as each figures starts to wind towards bringing criminal and detective together in an investigative chase.

There’s not always a slickness to Crime 101, but there is something of a suaveness to a number of scenes throughout. Hemsworth carries his role well and brings a certain amount of charisma to his character, especially when being more conversational with the likes of Barbaro and Berry’s characters, where Mike is clearly most relaxed; although occasionally still plotting and structuring his plans. In doing this there’s not quite a feeling of slow pacing, or that the film is taking its time, there feels movement of elements throughout without quite a restlessness from the film itself, only perhaps the audience.

This is a film that wears its influences but sometimes borrows from them a bit too much. Mirroring and falling under the conventions and winding key narrative elements of different kinds of heist flick together in the arcs of the overlapping characters. It means that the busyness of the film can lead to at least one strand faltering under lack of detail, or smaller characters not getting much screen-time, but when it finds itself caught in the drive of a particular moment and strikes the right tone of cool confidence there’s a solid engagement factor to be found here that may not quite have a sleekness, but carries itself well enough to get away with things.

With so many characters and plot strands often at least one thing gets left behind and feels less detailed amongst the overlapping threads that make up Crime 101. It may be a bit too long and not entirely slick, but it carries itself well enough to get past its more conventional and less weighted elements.

Cert – 15, Run-time – 2 hours 16 minutes, Director – Emerald Fennell

Class, ancestry and the future all create tensions in the passionate relationship between Cathy (Margot Robbie) and poor childhood friend Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi), especially in the wake of marriage and personal tragedy.

The quote marks around the title of Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s much-adapted novel are there to show that this is an adaptation of the version of Wuthering Heights that her mind saw when she read the novel at age 14. It’s a film, despite the (rightful) 15 certificate and advertising of steamy wall-to-wall nookie, that’s in some ways primarily made for girls of the same age, to be caught in the mist of the romance in the 18th Century Yorkshire moors.

There’s certainly a sauciness to the film as passions erupt between Margot Robbie’s Cathy and childhood friend, who she names and claims as her own after her father (Martin Clunes) takes him in, Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) – the young pair played by Charlotte Mellington and Owen Cooper respectively. After we see them grow up together Cathy’s sexual awakening – watching members of her father’s staff explore BDSM in the horse equipment shed – suggests that the film may well be nothing but sex, however Fennell avoids this temptation rather successfully and manages to focus on the relationship as part of the story being told.

A story which may be far from the most faithful adaptation, at least from what I’ve heard and seen of the response to the film; having not read (or knowing a great deal about) the novel myself, but creates plenty of detail in its landscapes and locations. Fennell’s film is visually brilliant. Capturing an old studio quality matched with almost theatrical, closed-in set design that’s opened out into the Yorkshire moors with considerable style by cinematographer Linus Sandgren.

When it comes to the thematic beats there’s a bite to the details of class and the futures the central lovers face, and try to achieve through other relationships, especially when passion turns into twisted desperation in Heathcliff’s case. Yet, it’s also at this point that the film finds itself caught between the bite and sauciness, sitting uncertainly between them as if hesitantly trying to bring them together when in actuality they’re consistently kept slightly apart. Something which becomes more the case as lives, marriage and rifts between the lead characters become more prominent, most of all in the third act which still manages to have its impacts.

Stylistically, Fennell is serving up a lot and while tonally and narratively it may well confirm that she’s one of the most divisive writer-directors working at the moment (although I’ve fallen into the camp who like her work so far) there’s still enough in “Wuthering Heights” to feel engaged by the ensuing romance, and indeed the locations it unfolds in. Robbie and Elordi serve solid performances in Fennell’s takes on the roles and while occasionally bumpy and conflicted, although generally getting through its run-time, there’s a take here that should work well for the target audience, especially in the emotional push of the closing stages. For others there’s undoubtedly another divisive feature here from Fennell, but another one that I largely got on with especially as she mixes location and visuals into the narrative and tone to lift them up.

While occasionally sitting uncertainly between its sex and bite Emerald Fennell’s take on “Wuthering Heights” still has enough happening in the romantic passions amongst the visually striking landscapes to help see it through with enough support and engagement.

Release Date – 20th February 2026, Cert – 15, Run-time – 2 hours 41 minutes, Director – Kleber Mendonça Filho

Brazil, 1977. To escape his recent past, Marcelo (Wagner Moura) finds himself returning to his distant past in the city of Recife, where multiple lives and identities catch up to him with deadly intent.

There’s a streak of dead-pan dark comedy in the extended opening scene of The Secret Agent. It could play out as its own short film, but opens the door to a world where murder is left out in the streets to be observed by everyone. Whether as a warning or reminder. Marcelo (Wagner Moura) has parked up at an out-of-the-way petrol station to fill up his bright yellow VW Beetle and sees a corpse covered by a not-big-enough piece of cardboard, the local dogs threatening to consume it before it’s taken away. Apparently a killing by the night shift worker stopping an attempted attack. The police turn up, ignore the body and scan Marcelo’s car inside and out before leading him on his way.

It’s a slow-burn opening but one rich with thematic detail for the lives that Marcelo finds himself caught between as the widower returns to his son (Enzo Nunes) in Recife. having been looked after by Marcelo’s in-laws. He appears to be returning in some ways to his somewhat distant past in order to escape his recent past, involving his work as a professor and the military dictatorship in Brazil, the film being set in 1977. With hitmen after him, seemingly the kind who will work for anyone who asks whether it be government or individual, he finds himself going undercover with quiet revolutionary action with those he lives near.

However, multiple paths start to close in and overlap. Marcelo, or as he becomes known Armando, is increasingly on edge as the overhanging threats that surround him, where anyone could be listening to a phone conversation, or observing it from just across the street, are clear in both his and the audience’s mind. While clocking in at 2-hours-and-40-minutes writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho and editors Eduardo Serrano and Matheus Farias do an effective job of finding balance amongst the busyness of the gradual narrative. Both in terms of its intentionally slow pacing and the ways in which information is revealed about Marcelo, those he’s working alongside and those who are closing in on them.

Moura provides a quiet performance where the subtleties lie in what Marcelo doesn’t give away. The thoughts that are going through his mind rather than what he’s clearly saying. It’s a performance that lives in the pauses and layers of the character, even in the opening stages before the past that caused him to drive to Recife is uncovered. There are a lot of cogs moving in the background of The Secret Agent to both keep things moving and allow for the consistent revealing of both narrative and character-based details.

It’s a film where much of what is key works quietly to allow for things to move along smoothly, and without feeling overlong. Making for a drama that allows for its elements to come together, with characters and their paths threatening that along the way, with a layered sense of tension-tinged intrigue. Where attitudes to murder, what death can mean and how it’s all observed and depicted come to the fore with effectively internalised thought and emotion from Moura as the events of the film, like the blood and bodies, start to spill into the shakily watched and controlled streets.

Wagner Moura’s central performance is one of internalised subtlety where much of the effect, like the film, is working in the background to keep things consistently moving and engaging in the slow-burn layers of The Secret Agent’s overhanging threat and depictions of murder and secrets.