The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
FILMS OF THE WEEK Mr & Mrs Smith – Friday, ITV, 11.15pm
Venom – Saturday, Channel 4, 9pm
Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), director of the mysterious Life Foundation, harvests amorphous extraterrestrials from a comet, which he then uses for secret experiments. Journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) investigates Drake and consequently loses his job. Soon afterwards, one of Drake’s research team, Dr Dora Skirth (Jenny Slate), gives Eddie the proof he needs to expose Life Foundation’s dubious morals. In the process, Eddie has an uncomfortably close encounter with one of the symbiotes and a creature called Venom melds with the reporter’s body.
Dunkirk – Sunday, BBC2, 10pm
Christopher Nolan’s drama is a stunning mosaic of personal stories of triumph and defeat set against the backdrop of the largest evacuation of Allied forces during the Second World War. Young British soldier Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) escapes a hail of German bullets and races to the beaches of Dunkirk, where 300,000 men await rescue. On the other side of the Channel, sailor Mr Dawson (Mark Rylance) answers Winston Churchill’s impassioned call for civilian boats to rescue our boys. At sea, he fishes out a shell-shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy) from an overturned vessel and witnesses a dogfight between German planes and RAF Spitfires piloted by Farrier (Tom Hardy) and Collins (Jack Lowden).
Just Mercy – Tuesday, BBC2, 11.15pm
Based on lawyer Bryan Stevenson’s memoir, writer-director Destin Daniel Cretton’s courtroom drama adds a thick layer of Hollywood sheen to the true story of an Alabama pulpwood worker, who tried to overturn his murder conviction from death row. The script is tethered to the facts of the case. There are no last-gasp twists in the judge’s deliberations nor any surprise witnesses, whose testimony provides a missing piece of the narrative. Instead, Just Mercy is a deeply conventional courtroom drama, galvanised by strong performances from Michael B Jordan and Jamie Foxx as the impassioned legal counsel and prisoner resigned to his grim fate.
Director Doug Liman’s slam-bang action movie sees embittered duo John Smith (Brad Pitt) and wife Jane (Angelina Jolie) heading for marriage guidance counselling, hoping to rediscover their lost spark. Excitement is certainly what they get when they learn they are both assassins-forhire for rival firms – and have been contracted to kill each other. But as the bullets begin to fly, they decide to combine their expert skills in an effort to stay one step ahead of their employers – delivering a breathtaking blitzkrieg of explosive action and pithy one-liners along the way. Fantastic support comes from Vince Vaughn.