Pick of the weekDead Man\u2019s Wire<\/p>\n
The spirit of the Al Pacino classic Dog Day Afternoon is alive and well in Gus Van Sant\u2019s ripped-from-the-headlines drama. Both feature a desperate man driven to extremes, a frantic police operation to contain him and a 1970 media circus that creates an antihero. Bill Skarsg\u00e5rd is all gangly, edgy energy as Tony Kiritsis, a low-level Indianapolis land developer who believes mortgage broker ML Hall (Al Pacino in a superbly unlikable cameo) cheated him on a deal. So he takes Hall\u2019s son, Richard (Dacre Montgomery), hostage using the titular contraption connected to a shotgun. It\u2019s surprisingly funny amid the sweaty tension, with Kiritsis\u2019s delusion that he\u2019ll get away with the crime almost endearing.
Friday 5 June, 8am, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere<\/p>\n
Propeller One-Way Night CoachFly guys \u2026 Kelly Eviston-Quinnett and Clark Shotwell in Propeller One-Way Night Coach. Photograph: Apple TV<\/p>\n
John Travolta\u2019s drama is the definition of a vanity project. He wrote and directed it from his own children\u2019s novel, as well as narrating, and it features members of his family. But there\u2019s something cosily nostalgic about his stylishly retro tale, set in the golden age of air travel. It\u2019s 28 December 1962, and Jeff (Clark Shotwell) and his actor mother (Kelly Eviston-Quinnett) are flying TWA from New York to LA overnight. It\u2019s an eye-opening experience for the eight-year-old on his first flight, with glamorous cabin crew, actual beds and \u201cchicken cordon bleu\u201d.
Out now, Apple TV<\/p>\n
Ghost TrailBy the book? \u2026 Adam Bessa in Ghost Trail. Photograph: Alamy<\/p>\n
In 2016, a group of exiled Syrians in Europe are tracking down war criminals from the Assad regime. Hamid (Adam Bessa) thinks he has found one in Strasbourg, posing as a university chemistry student. But as he surveils him, Hamid\u2019s increasing certainty that this was the state official who tortured him in prison bumps up against a lack of definitive proof. In Jonathan Millet\u2019s slow-burning, fact-based French thriller, the hunt for justice is warped by obsession and PTSD, with Bessa taut and locked-down as the literature lecturer turned amateur secret agent.
Saturday 30 May, 9.05pm, BBC Four<\/p>\n
The Nice GuysMystery men \u2026 Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe in The Nice Guys. Photograph: Daniel McFadden\/AP<\/p>\n
This roisterous 2016 caper fits neatly into the sunny, starry, sleazy world of California crime fiction that gave us LA Confidential \u2013 and in lead Russell Crowe has a pleasing link to that film. But being a Shane Black movie, it\u2019s also much funnier, with Crowe\u2019s world-weary heavy-for-hire Jackson and Ryan Gosling\u2019s bumbling private eye\/single dad Holland a comic double act to cherish. The plot involves the death of a porn star and the search for a missing young woman (Margaret Qualley) in a wonderfully evoked 1970s Los Angeles of power, corruption and lies.
Sunday 31 May, 10.30pm, BBC One<\/p>\n
MonolithCall of the wild \u2026 Monolith. Photograph: Bonsai Films<\/p>\n
Matt Vesely\u2019s indie sci-fi horror demonstrates how a good idea can outweigh a small effects budget. It\u2019s shot entirely in one house with only one actor on screen, Lily Sullivan, who plays a sacked journalist reduced to doing a podcast about uncanny events. She comes upon the tale of a black brick that contains mysterious symbols and is linked to disturbing visions \u2013 and the more research she does, the weirder things become. So is it evidence of aliens or a metaphor for buried trauma?
Monday 1 June, 9pm, Film4<\/p>\n
Devil in the DustAn evil cradling \u2026 Dewanda Wise in Devil in the Dust. Photograph: Signature Entertainment<\/p>\n
This western is knocked off-kilter almost immediately when a cute little blond girl kills a horse by touching it. The supernatural frisson in Ned Crowley\u2019s yarn never really goes away, as we follow Guy Pearce\u2019s grizzled, ether-addicted doctor Bender, rancher Sarah (DeWanda Wise) and her aforementioned daughter (a deadpan Emily Ford, channelling Damien in The Omen) on a quest to a preacher who can supposedly take out the devil in her. An array of quirky supporting characters \u2013 including a Native American called William Shakespeare \u2013 keep the film on the lighter side of chilling.
Friday 5 June, Paramount+<\/p>\n
Bring Them DownFeud for thought \u2026 Christopher Abbott, Barry Keoghan and Nora-Jane Noone in Bring Them Down. Photograph: Mubi<\/p>\n
A film possessing the relentlessness of tragedy, Chris Andrews\u2019 dark rural drama takes two neighbouring Irish farming families, then watches as they destroy each other and themselves. Christopher Abbott\u2019s shepherd Michael sets out for revenge when Jack (Barry Keoghan) \u2013 the son of his former girlfriend, Caroline (Nora-Jane Noone) \u2013 steals two of his rams. We see their actions \u2013 and unforeseen consequences \u2013 successively from both men\u2019s points of view, with Keoghan exceptional in being able to appear malevolent and innocent at the same time.
Friday 5 June, 11pm, BBC Two<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pick of the weekDead Man\u2019s Wire The spirit of the Al Pacino classic Dog Day Afternoon is alive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-450863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}