Rupert Friend

News, Reviews & Features
  • The Death Of Stalin

    Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 23rd October 2017

    By now the central premise of Armando Iannucci's recent satirical output is clear enough, or has maybe just about been done to death: in politics, everyone's a chancer, making it up on the fly and looking out for number one. In The Death of Stalin there's an extra layer of irony, too: under Communism, there isn't supposed to be a number one to look out for. It's kind of the point.

  • New Hitman poster makes excellent use of unnecessary helicopters

    Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 2nd March 2015

    Good on Hitman: Agent 47 for keeping the trend of unnecessary helicopters in low-quality action movie posters alive and well.

  • 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.