Allon Reich Movies
- 2010
Keira Knightley stars in this sci-fi thriller focusing on a group of people brought up through boarding schools who discover they're clones for organ harvesting in this Fox Searchlight production from director Mark Romanek. Alex Garland provides the screenplay, with Andrew Garfield and Carey Mulligan also starring. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
The devastating rage virus that annihilated the British Isles mysteriously resurfaces in Goya Award-winning director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's sequel to the Danny Boyle-directed horror hit that terrified audiences worldwide by offering a breathless new take on the familiar zombie mythos. Six months has passed since the rage virus caused British residents to indiscriminately murder and destroy everything in their paths, and now the U.S. military has declared victory in the war against the rapidly spreading infection. As the reconstruction process gets underway and the first wave of refugees return to British shores, a family separated by the devastation is happily reunited. During the initial outbreak, Don Harris (Robert Carlyle) and his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) sat holed up with a small band of survivors in a remote farmhouse. Their kids well out of harm's way at a remote boarding school, Don and Alice's outlook for the future is decidedly bright until all hell breaks loose in the country and Don just barely manages to escape the clutches of the infected. The joy of later seeing his son Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) and daughter Tammy (Imogen Poots) as repopulation efforts get underway in London is short-lived, however, when an innocent bid to reconnect with the past sets into motion a tragic series of events. Now, just as society struggles to sort through the rubble and rebuild London from the ground up, the virus that nearly destroyed a nation strikes back with a vengeance. Jeremy Renner, Rose Byrne, and Harold Perrineau, Jr. co-star in the frightful sequel, which highlights the dangers of declaring victory in the calm before the storm. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, (more)
Director Kevin MacDonald teams with screenwriter Jeremy Brock to adapt Giles Foden's novel detailing the brutal reign of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin as seen through the eyes of his personal physician. James McAvoy stars as the doctor who slowly realizes that he is trapped in an inescapable nightmare, and Forest Whitaker assumes the role of the notorious despot. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, (more)
An unruly collection of clever but crass Thatcher-era English high-school students seek to earn the scores needed to enroll in Oxford and Cambridge in director Nicholas Hytner and screenwriter Alan Bennett's screen adaptation of Bennett's Tony-winning play. The History Boys focuses on a group of eight students, all of them deemed by their overeager headmaster (Clive Merrison) to be the best and the brightest. Though they've been coddled by their humanities-loving instructor, Hector (Richard Griffiths), and their acerbic history teacher, Mrs. Lintott (Frances de la Tour), the boys are deemed in need of additional tutoring; thus, the brash, young Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore) is recruited to challenge them further. The subtle power games the boys used to their advantage with their previous tutors are of no use with Irwin, whose wit borders on the callous. Meanwhile, Irwin's presence -- and a hush-hush scandal -- forces all of the faculty members to reassess their position at the school. Hytner shot The History Boys shortly after the play's Broadway run, to capitalize on the enthusiasm and energy exhibited in the live shows. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Griffiths, Frances de la Tour, (more)
A.E.W. Mason's perennially popular tale of honor and adventure is brought to the screen yet again in this lavish period action-drama. In 1884, Harry Feversham (Heath Ledger) is a young officer-in-training in the British Army who is soon to graduate and is expected to be shipped of to the Sudan, where the King's military are battling Muslim insurgents who are attempting to overturn English colonial rule. Feversham, however, has developed serious ethical reservations about going along, and on the eve of his departure, he resigns his commission. Feversham's best friend and fellow officer Jack Durrance (Wes Bentley) in response presents him with a white feather (a symbol of cowardice), and two of his classmates follow suit. Ethne Eustace (Kate Hudson), Feversham's fiancée, presents him with a fourth white feather shortly before breaking off their engagement. Sufficiently humbled, Feversham attempts to win back his honor and the respect of his family and friends by secretly becoming an undercover operative in the Sudan. His initial attempts to pose as an Arab are not especially convincing, but he makes friends with Abou Fatma (Djimon Hounsou), a local sympathetic with the British cause who proves to be a valuable source of insider information and advice on how to blend with the rebels. Meanwhile, Durrance is briefly ordered back to England to help recruit new soldiers for the colonial forces, and he takes the opportunity to begin wooing Eustace, the former flame of his former friend. This adaptation is the fifth film version of The Four Feathers, following two silent screen adaptations (released in 1915 and 1928), Zoltan Korda's memorable 1939 version, and a 1977 made-for-TV movie. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley, (more)
Damien O'Donnell's Heartlands stars Michael Sheen as a man on a mission. Colin (Sheen) is a simple man who is stunned to learn that his wife has taken up with the captain of his dart team. Upon learning that the two are headed to a big dart competition in Blackpool, Colin hops on his moped and pursues her. Along the way he meets an assortment of colorful individuals. Eventually, Colin is given the chance to confront his wife and her lover. Heartlands was screened at the Edinburgh Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Sheen, Mark Addy, (more)
Animal rights activists free a group of infected chimpanzees to horrifying results in this speculative sci-fi horror effort from Trainspotting director Danny Boyle. Waking from a coma in a deserted London hospital 28 days later, bicycle courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) takes to the deserted city streets in a state of mystified confusion. Joining forces with another group of survivors following a terrifying encounter in a seemingly abandoned church, Jim soon learns the truth behind the deserted streets and the menacing creatures that lurk in the shadows. It's soon revealed that the chimpanzees had been harboring a deadly virus that sends its victims into a furious, murderous rage, and in the days following the initial exposure, the entire population was nearly wiped out due to the resulting homicidal rampage. Is there still a glimmer of hope for humanity -- or has the deadly "rage" virus found its way to foreign shores and infected the entire planet? ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, (more)
Director Stephen Frears returns to the grittier themes of his earlier films for the urban thriller Dirty Pretty Things. Residing in London, the medically trained Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a Nigerian immigrant working as a taxi driver and a hotel concierge, but he still lives on the edge of poverty. He shares a room with Senay (Amélie's Audrey Tautou making her English-language debut), a Turkish refugee who works as a maid at the hotel. As illegal immigrants, Okwe and Senay live in fear of being deported. One night, working at the front desk, Okwe receives a call from prostitute Juliette (Sophie Okonedo) to check a broken toilet, where he makes a horrifying discovery. He reports it to the manager Sneaky (Sergi Lopez), who blackmails Okwe into staying quiet about it. Okwe soon discovers the presence of a shady business operation that sends him into the seedy London underworld. Senay becomes lured in with hopes of being able to fund her escape to America. Dirty Pretty Things marks the screenwriting debut of Steve Knight, co-creator of the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Audrey Tautou, Chiwetel Ejiofor, (more)
A man looking for love gets more than he bargained for when he chooses his prospective wife on the internet in this dark comedy. The manager of a bank in a small British community (Ben Chaplin) decides that he's in need of long-term companionship, and through an on-line marriage broker called From Russia With Love, he obtains a "mail order" bride (Nicole Kidman). While he's more than pleased that his new fiancée is so beautiful, she turns out to have a dangerous and mysterious side that he wasn't counting on, and things become quite complicated when two of her cousins (Vincent Cassel and Mathieu Kassovitz) arrive from Russia and move into his tiny house in St. Albans. Though set in England, Birthday Girl was actually shot in Australia, which allowed leading lady Nicole Kidman to stay in touch with her then- husband, Tom Cruise, who was shooting Mission: Impossible II in Australia at the same time. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nicole Kidman, Ben Chaplin, (more)
- 1999
- NR
Four young couples attempt to navigate the twists and turns of modern romance in this romantic comedy drama. As Jules (Emmanuelle Beart) and Will (Daniel Lapaine) are toasted by their friends on announcing their engagement, the happy couple and six of their close acquaintances are trying to sort out their troubles with relationships. Jules is a successful businesswoman who is devoted to Will, but Will has no talent for fidelity and sees a certain prostitute on a regular basis. Billy (Sean Gallagher), a good friend of Will's, is a research scientist who is shy around women; when he finally does meet a woman who is interested in him, it turns out to be Dodie (Kimberly Williams), a single mother from America who espouses the virtues of tantric sex. Frank (Mark Strong) is an analyst in love with Daphne (Daniela Nardini), who loves making him mad. And George (Lee Williams) is a model whose relationship with Graham (Lennie James) is put to the test when George becomes a success and Graham has trouble dealing with his lover's new fame. Elephant Juice was written by Amy Jenkins and directed by Sam Miller, who previously worked together on the successful British TV series This Life. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emmanuelle Béart, Sean Gallagher, (more)
Freely adapted from a novel by Jane Austen, this period drama is set in the early 1800s, as a girl named Fanny (Hannah Taylor Gordon) is being raised by loving but desperately poor parents. Wanting a better life for Fanny, they send her away to live with her aunts, high-minded Mrs. Norris (Sheila Gish) and drug-addicted Lady Bertram (Lindsay Duncan), who share an estate called Mansfield Park. Fanny joins the family at Mansfield Park, which includes Lady Bertram's husband Sir Thomas (Harold Pinter), who made his money in slaves and West Indian plantations; Sir Thomas's son Tom (James Purefoy), an alcoholic; Tom's intelligent younger brother Edmund (Jonny Lee Miller); and his two sisters, Julia (Justine Waddell) and Maria (Victoria Hamilton). Fanny soon makes friends with Edmund, though she's shown little respect by the rest of the family. In time, Fanny grows to adulthood (now played by Frances O'Connor) and gains skill and poise as a horsewoman while developing her skills as an author. When the stylish but secretive siblings Henry and Mary Crawford (Alassandro Nivola and Embeth Davidtz) arrive at Mansfield Park, romantic sparks begin to fly; the two sisters fight over Henry, while Mary is soon engaged to wed Edmund -- to the disappointment of Fanny, who has fallen in love with him. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frances O'Connor, Jonny Lee Miller, (more)
