Omar Ahmed
-
THE ROARING TWENTIES (Dir. Raoul Walsh, 1939, US)
* * * * Arguably a quintessential Warner Bros gangster pic that zips along with so much charm, style and Jimmy Cagney at his smarmy best. Circling back to this one from having seen so many contemporary gangster films it becomes evidently clear the film’s mighty sway on the genre, and that is a given Continue reading
-
MAN ON A SWING (Dir. Frank Perry, 1974, US) – Trust in Me
* * * Since the 1970s American film canon is so rich, much has slipped through, which makes discovery altogether more pleasurable. The work of director Frank Perry is a major blind spot for me. I think the only film of his I had seen was The Swimmer (1968), a counter culture work which stars Continue reading
-
TRIAL BY FIRE (Dir. Prashant Nair, Randeep Jha, Avani Deshpande, 2023, India) – Fight the Power
* * * * Prashant Nair, Randeep Jha & Avani Deshpande’s Trial by Fire is a vacuum of rage; the rage of two parents who lost their children due to criminal negligence in one of the deadliest fires in India. This is by far the best Netflix Indian TV series to date and is light Continue reading
-
THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN (Dir. Stuart Rosenberg, 1973, US)
* * * When a gunman opens fire on a late-night bus in San Francisco, establishing the idea of a killer on the loose in a city one would naturally assume this is going to be the first of many brutal public executions. I blame Siegel’s Dirty Harry (1971), which was released a few years, Continue reading
-
THE OUTFIT (Dir. John Flynn, 1973, US) – ‘The Good Guys Always Win…
* * * * Flynn’s The Outfit, based on the prolific crime writer Donald Westlake, followed on the heels of Peckinpah’s The Getaway which was released a year before in 1972. In fact, if one was going to cite a key film in terms of attempting to contextualise a kind of cinematic lineage then it Continue reading
Movie Mahal 