The Connection (15)
three stars
Dir: Cedric Jimenez
With: Jean Dujardin, Gilles Lellouche
Runtime: 135 minutes
THE Artist's Jean Dujardin shows his serious side in this impressive French thriller which stretches across the bell-bottomed Seventies. The connection of the title is the French kind, meaning a tale of drugs, murder, corruption is yours for the taking. Dujardin plays a heroic judge taking on the cartels, with Gilles Lellouche the Marseille kingpin whose position is under threat. Long and sprawling, but the stand off between the leads sizzles, and the styling is immaculate.
Glasgow Film Theatre, May 29-June 11
Man Up (15)
two stars
Dir: Ben Palmer
With: Simon Pegg, Lake Bell
ANOTHER British comedy in the Four Weddings mould, a form that should have been consigned to the bin long ago. Simon Pegg and Lake Bell are the accidental blind daters who mug and wisecrack their way through a script of comedy swearing, comedy coincidences, and comedy banter, none of which is ever actually funny. Annoyingly daft with a strangely mean undercurrent, the tone is all over the place. Bell (In a World) is as watchable as ever. Otherwise, give this one a dizzy.
Timbuktu (12A)
four stars
Dir: Abderrahmane Sissako
With: Ibrahim Ahmed dit Pino, Abel Jafri
Runtime: 96 minutes
WHAT does it mean when Islamist militants take over a place? Who is targeted, what are the new "laws"? Abderrahmane Sissak's drama takes audiences behind the news stories to reveal the everyday horror of such tyranny. The setting is northern Mali, west Africa, where a farmer, Kidane, and his family try to keep themselves to themselves. But the militants will leave no-one and nothing alone. The local folk do their best to resist, leading to some quietly amusing moments in what is an otherwise unrelentingly tense film. Nominated for the best foreign film Oscar, Timbuktu shocks, enlightens and moves in equal measure.
Glasgow Film Theatre, May 29-June 4; Filmhouse, Edinburgh, May 29-June 11.
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