John Carroll Lynch

News, Reviews & Features
  • Review: The Highwaymen is your dad's new favourite film

    Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 11th April 2019

    I was reading an article today about the cartel leader El Chapo, who is currently in prison for murder, drug trafficking and money laundering, among other things. So beloved is El Chapo, and so cherished his image by the common folk of Mexico, he's been able to launch a fashion line from his cell. It's a curious feature of the human brain that we allow ourselves to be attracted towards these dark figures, hailing them as heroes despite the devastation their crimes have caused. I guess all it takes is a media-friendly mugshot and enough degrees of separation to empathise with someone who would do you harm if you ever crossed them. Back at the start of our modern press age, Bonnie & Clyde were like a prototype of the El Chapo phenomenon; shown a dose of forgiveness due to the romanticism associated with their escapades. The reality was they were killers who needed to be stopped - an inevitability due to the attention they'd brought upon themselves - and the job fell to two middle-aged men, sent criss-crossing endless dusty roads in an olde timey car. But just because there's nothing sexy about that story, does it mean it shouldn't be told?

  • Hesher

    Movie Review | Ali | 5th March 2012

    Earlier this year on one of my weekly trips to Amazon to buy DVDs I definitely don't need, I stumbled across a film that I've been waiting to hit UK cinemas for years now. Spencer Sussman's black comedy Hesher was the talk of the festival circuit in 2010, but now finds itself ungamely shunted onto DVD shelves without so much as an apologetic press release. No film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Oscar-winner Natalie Portman (star of "The Black Swan" according to the DVD cover) and Rainn Wilson deserves such a fate: Hesher deserves more than one of Matt's DVD round-ups ("I haven't seen it, but...") so here's my review in full.

  • Crazy Stupid Love

    Movie Review | Ali | 20th September 2011

    Crazy Stupid Love is a movie that wants it all. It's a romcom that knows it's a romcom and wants you to know it knows it's a romcom. Characters reference popular movies and the clichés therein; by pointing out the elephants in the room, they're allowing us in on the joke. "Damn, love is crazy and stupid," they nudge and wink to us, but because they acknowledge the craziness and stupidity of movie romance, they assume they'll get away with it. Luckily for us, the characters of Crazy Stupid Love are so darn charming, they do.

  • Gothika

    Movie Review | Ali | 12th September 2004

    Halle Berry needs a new agent. For every Monster's Ball, there's a B.A.P.S and for every Bulworth, there's a Swordfish - although undoubtedly a fine actress and worthy of that Oscar, she's proving to be frustratingly inconsistent in choosing her roles. The latest blip on the Berry CV is the psycho-thriller Gothika, the premise...