Peter Mullan

Review: War Horse

At the screening of War Horse I attended, there were people in floods of tears. Floods. Not just quiet, reflective sobbing, but that godless, wretched honking that's usually accompanied by snot and friends who wish they were somewhere else. Me? I didn't shed a single tear – I walked out of there like Moses parting a salty sea. Bear in mind I once got a bit teary because I thought one of my cats was upset with me, and that should tell you a little about me, but everything about War Horse. It's about as manipulative a film has Steven Spielberg has ever made – a movie that's been custom-designed from the ground up to play a sad harp solo on the heartstrings; a story cynically told to invoke as many tears as possible. You'd swear it was bankrolled by Kleenex.

Review: Tyrannosaur

One of the major problems people seemed to have with Joe Cornish's Attack The Block was that the protagonists were essentially thugs – armed youths who kicked off the movie by mugging a nurse. It's a tough job to have audiences rally round such a loutish lot and requires one hell of a knack for character to win them over. Well, Tyrannosaur opens with the lead character kicking his own dog to death. Just imagine how hard Peter Mullan and Paddy Considine have to work to make amends for that.

Review: Neds

Peter Mullan is vomit-inducingly talented. Not content with being merely a respected actor, or an acclaimed writer, or a talented director, Mullan is all three. Simultaneously. What a massive show-off.

Review: Children Of Men

Say what you will about Clive Owen, (for example that he's dull, almost completely inanimate, and has the charisma of Steve Davis on Ritalin), but there's no one out there more suited to the role of a disillusioned British bureaucrat. Whilst his King Arthur had all the dynamic leadership skills of the average Tory party candida...