Everybody Wants Some!! (15)

four stars

Dir: Richard Linklater

With: Blake Jenner, Juston Street

Runtime: 117 minutes

SOME folk might think a single exclamation mark is one too many, so for Richard Linklater’s college comedy to have two seems like a joke that is trying too hard. Yet such is the amount of pure joy that beams from this picture, one can forgive it almost anything. Functioning as a sort of sequel to Linklater’s high school-set Dazed and Confused, EWS follows new guy Jake (Blake Jenner) as he arrives at university in Texas. A baseball player, Jake is soon living the dream as one of the elite, except in this college everybody seems to want, and get, good times. Will (hopefully) take you back to your own long, hot, salad days at school or college. A sunny delight.

Richard Linklater talks to Teddy Jamieson on P18

Our Kind of Traitor (15)

three stars

Dir: Susanna White

With: Ewan McGregor, Naomie Harris

Runtime: 108 minutes

ARRIVING just in time for those suffering John Le Carre/The Night Manager withdrawal symptoms comes this so-so spy drama starring Ewan McGregor. The Scotsman plays college lecturer Perry Makepeace who is on holiday with his partner (Naomie Harris) when an enigmatic Russian (played by Stellan Skarsgard) asks a favour of him. Before you can say on her majesty’s secret service, Perry is up to his eyes in international skulduggery, with spy chief Hector (Damian Lewis) offering advice. Rattles along, but it is one of those tales which is more credible on the page than the screen.