Peter Ferdinando

News, Reviews & Features
  • Starred Up

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 21st March 2014

    Starred Up might be the angriest movie ever made. Set inside a British jail as troublesome new arrival Eric Love (Jack O'Connell) joins his lag father Neville (Ben Mendelsohn) on the wing, David Mackenzie's prison drama feels as though it is powered by white hot fury. As the inmates clash, tidal waves of ugly, pointless, misguided anger crash down on one another. The air feels heavy with rage, as if characters breathe in a red mist and can't help acting on it. The inmates of Starred Up are like bombs that could go off at any second, and the movie's fuse constantly threatens to ignite without a moment's notice. Although the director often allows himself to indulge in the violence as his characters do, Mackenzie never loses sight of what's behind the unrest, and why that's way more important than the outbursts themselves.

  • A Field In England

    Movie Review | Neil | 4th July 2013

    I don't like mushrooms. Never have. I don't trust 'em. They taste weird, they look weird, they've got the texture of an internal organ and they're responsible for one of the worst puns ever. I therefore approached Ben Wheatley's new film, A Field In England, as some kind of aversion therapy. Perhaps the mushroom consumption for which the film is already known would persuade me that it's possible to eat a fungus and still have a good time? Sadly it didn't quite work out that way. I had a good time, but now not only am I terrified of mushrooms, I've also developed an unhealthy fear of fields, tents and Michael Smiley.