Category Archives: Tom Burke

2025 Films, Cate Blanchett, Drama, Gustaf Skarsgård, Marisa Abela, Michael Fassbender, Naomie Harris, Pierce Brosnan, Regé-Jean Page, Steven Soderbergh, Thriller, Tom Burke

Black Bag-2025

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Black Bag-2025

Director Steven Soderbergh

Starring Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender

Scott’s Review #1,473

Reviewed March 30, 2025

Grade: B+

Steven Soderbergh offers Black Bag (2025), a taut spy thriller that is very slick and fast-paced. Wasting no time to lag or drag, he gets right down to the action in a quick one hour and thirty-four minute running time.

Stars Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender play British intelligence officers and husband and wife, George and Kathryn. His superior, Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgård), gives George one week to investigate the leak of a top-secret software program code-named Severus.

One of the five suspects is Kathryn.

Viewers familiar with Soderbergh’s films will recognize the familiarity of the tense electronic musical score by David Holmes, a frequent collaborator of Soderbergh. He scored the Oceans trilogy (2001-2007), which Black Bag resembles.

Those films, hits at the time, now feel less impactful, but Black Bag takes a similar style and envelops a modern, sophisticated London backdrop.

The immediate draw is Fassbender and Blanchett, who play exceptionally well opposite each other. Both stars light up the screen electrically, offering cat-and-mouse scenes that cackle with dry wit and sensuality.

George can always sense untruths and despises liars. As much as he loves Kathryn, he doubts her when he finds a movie ticket receipt in the trash for a film she claims never to have seen. But is she being set up?

The supporting characters are impressive, with Marisa Abela and Tom Burke as sparring partners and Clarissa and Freddie getting the meatier roles.

The best sequence is the riveting dinner sequence when George invites the four other suspects, all colleagues, to dinner. When he drugs their food to lower their inhibitions, he has them play a warped game of ‘Resolutions’ in which they make a resolution for the person to their right.

Since the other couples are each dating, this leads to revelations, squabbles, and a jealous stabbing.

Even in mainstream pictures, Soderbergh loves incorporating corporate work sequences and independent cinema/arthouse qualities. Propelled by the musical score, sometimes frenetic, there is a thrilling vibe even in quiet scenes.

He also loves closeup shots, which are especially important for Fassbender, Blanchett, and the dinner guests.

Nearly putting style over substance, the story, written by David Koepp, is complicated to follow. We assume that one of the dinner guests or Kathyrn’s boss, Arthur (Pierce Brosnan), is the rat, serving up a film whodunit.

Kathryn has access to a Zurich bank account containing ₤7 million in misdirected and unexplained funds, and there is something to do with a Russian operative who Kathryn flies to Zurich to meet.

The rest of the plot is gray, and after the film, I needed to read a synopsis to gain some understanding.

Small wonders that may have had little to do with the story impressed me. A simple scene in a crowded movie theater where Kathryn and George munch popcorn and flinch at scary scenes enhances the importance and joy one gets from watching a film in the movie theater.

The couple’s duplex London loft is pure magic to look at. As George prepares simmering food and quality wine in the vast kitchen with modern trimmings, their upstairs bedroom is equally enthralling with cosmopolitan furniture colors and just the right polish.

The couple is obviously worldly.

Black Bag (2025) is an entertaining film. Do not struggle to follow every nuance or story point, or you will be frustrated. Instead, sit back and enjoy the experience of a spy thriller with incredible music, sets, and stars.

2022 Films, Bill Nighy, Drama, Tom Burke

Living-2022

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Living-2022

Director Oliver Hermanus

Starring Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood

Scott’s Review #1,380

Reviewed July 20, 2023

Grade: B+

Living (2022) is a British film remake of a Japanese movie named Ikiru made in 1952. That screenplay was partly inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich. I have not seen that film but my best bet is that it is either equal or superior to Living.

The remake is quiet yet powerful. It teaches a poignant lesson about living life to its fullest and not wasting time on trivial and meaningless things that most people stress over.

Before you know it life is over.

The brilliance of this message is that anyone can apply it to their own lives at any age and in any given situation. At least that is what I took from the film and therefore the film is inspiring to me personally.

In this particular case, the focus is an elderly man who has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and given a maximum of six months to live.

With high reliability, Living tells the story of an ordinary man named Rodney Miller (Bill Nighy) who has so far lived years of dull office work and a careful routine. In other words, he has enjoyed only a bland existence and rarely does much exciting.

To be clear, he is not a loser but is quite polished and prim and proper. Well-dressed, has a good job, and is highly responsible. He resides with his son and daughter-in-law.

Once his doctor gives Mr. Miller his diagnosis, he becomes determined to turn his dull life into something wonderful with the help of a young office worker, Miss Margaret Harris played by Aimee Lou Wood).

While the supporting actors are fine they are not given much to do or deeply explored except maybe Wood. She is compelling as a girl next door type who bonds with her much older boss. We root for her to find happiness and she does.

Living works best as a character study and Nighy quietly takes charge with a ferociously understated performance that justifiably landed him with an Academy Award nomination.

The actor has a gorgeous voice, so very poised, deep, and oozing with polish and sophistication. I fell in love with the character right away even before his deadly cancer diagnosis.

He’s not a bad man just a boring one and Nighy is successful at showing his appeal. This is evidenced in his personal life when he is unable to communicate with his son though he desperately wants to. His life has so far avoided any ruffling of feathers that he cannot even adequately express himself.

The film avoids exploration of much of anything about Mr. Williams’s personal life and he has no designs on Miss Harris other than his envy of her joy and passion for life. He does not seem to be gay but nothing is said for a wife or ex-wife.

The overall pace of the film is slow which may not appeal to some viewers. Since the running time was merely one hour and forty-two minutes I wasn’t bored though I wasn’t energized either until the ending which I found moving.

The experience is not a downer despite the subject matter and no scenes of Mr. Williams dying a painful death or any hospital scenes are featured. Rather, it portrays life.

The filmmaking is clean and polished sort of like Mr. Williams and there exists a rich London texture. Rainy days, a sophisticated swagger, and crisp structured sets and art design are what I mostly notice.

The title of Living (2022) is appropriate for the lesson being presented to the audience. Spend an enormous amount on that savory dinner, eat an enormous ice cream sundae, or help someone before looking the other way.

Because one day it will be too late.

Oscar Nominations: Best Actor-Bill Nighy, Best Adapted Screenplay

2020 Films, Biography, Drama, Gary Oldman, Tom Burke

Mank-2020

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Mank-2020

Director-David Fincher

Starring Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, Tom Pelphrey

Scott’s Review #1,110

Reviewed February 9, 2021

Grade: A

Everyone knows that Citizen Kane (1941) is one of the greatest films ever made. Well, I hope so anyway. Almost always appearing at the top of ‘best of’ lists its merits are justified and creativity astounding. In a word it’s groundbreaking. The visual beauty, tone, and lighting are exceptional, to say the least. But this review is not meant to kiss the ass of that treasured masterpiece.

Mank (2020) is a film that is a love letter to the Golden Age of Hollywood. For those unfamiliar with Citizen Kane, please see the film immediately or the beauty of Mank will be missed.

The film celebrates the brilliance of Citizen Kane by offering new fans a glimpse into the creation of the film while breathing life into the 1930s and 1940s film for new and younger fans to experience. It also gives classic film fans something to sink their teeth into and reaffirmation of their passion for the cinema. Film lovers will adore Mank.

The project stems back to the 1990s when director David Fincher’s father, Jack, began work on the film. It never came to fruition, and Jack Fincher died in 2003. Eventually, the project was officially announced, and filming took place around Los Angeles from November 2019 to February 2020.

The film is about Citizen Kane specifically but is so much more than that. It’s part biography about alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) as he scrambles to finish writing Citizen Kane given a tight deadline while also trying to recover from a broken leg. He is hired by the famous Orson Welles (director and star of Citizen Kane) to pen the script without any credit.

As terrific as Oldman is, as he always is, Mank also explores and dissects the politics of California of that time, the impending Nazi regime that soon led to World War II, and the rich and powerful producers. It harkens back to the 1930s so genuinely that I felt I was living this important decade through my cinematic eyes. How different Hollywood was then!

Oldman is the star of a large cast with many actors being given small yet important roles. Nearly unrecognizable with a bloated beer belly and stringy hair, Herman is a lifelong boozer. Mank spans ten years, from 1930 to 1940, and goes back in forth between the years. Mankiewicz dictated dialogue to his secretary, Rita (Lily Collins) in one scene while visiting the set of films made in the early 1930s.

Fun fact- Collins is the daughter of British pop artist Phil Collins and is on the cusp of a big career.

With his wit and humor, never afraid to call a spade a spade, or insult billionaire American businessman William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance), he offends glamorous starlets over an extravagant dinner, forcing them to depart one by one as he gets drunker and drunker.

Never a big fan of Amanda Seyfried’s, the actress impresses with a fabulous performance, the best of her career. Playing Marion Davies, the inspiration for a character in Citizen Kane, she befriends Mankiewicz platonically, and the pair become close. Seyfried nails it with a giving performance. Tom Pelphrey plays Herman’s handsome brother, Joseph, on the cusp of becoming a famous writer and director and the actor is terrific.

The look of Mank is delicious. The black and white cinematography offers an homage to Citizen Kane with the stark use of dark and light contrasting each other in gorgeous form. Two great scenes come to mind- In 1933 Herman and Marion go for a stroll in a lavish courtyard, where they bond over discussions on politics and the film industry. It’s a benevolent and sweet scene where many topics are explored and embraced and is a definite ode to Hollywood.

The other takes place within the Hearst Mansion, directly before the aforementioned scene, where a drunken Herman lets loose on some of the Hollywood elite. He insults Louis B. Mayer, founder of the famous MGM studios, the most famous and influential of all studios.

A gem is the addition of so many historic Hollywood figures, a treasure chest for fans of old cinema. Joan Crawford, Great Garbo, and Bette Davis are featured, although if you blink you’ll miss them.

A wonderful suggestion is to work double-time and follow-up a viewing of Mank with Citizen Kane (I did!) for further appreciation of the film. A gift is realizing how the characters who appear in the classic film are based on real-life characters in Mankiewicz’s world.

Mank (2020) should be appreciated and revered for its lovely hybrid of crisp dialogue and wry comedy based on a real-life Hollywood director, and its cinematography and visual appreciation of a long-ago era of cinema. I hope this inspires some to appreciate and salivate over films created almost a hundred years ago.

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director-David Fincher, Best Actor-Gary Oldman, Best Supporting Actress-Amanda Seyfried, Best Production Design (won), Best Cinematography (won), Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, Best Sound