MOVIE REVIEWS: Battle honours

Watch the trailer here

As in The English Patient our tragic lovers here spend a great deal of time apart.

The guts of the story takes place in 1940 when Robbie is fighting in France in the retreat to Dunkirk and Cecilia is nursing in London preparing for the blitz.

Director Joe Wright, hot off the success of Pride & Prejudice, manages to convey the sense of place and time effortlessly. His view of Dunkirk for example is breathtaking and this is just one highlight in a film full of visual treats.

Although Atonement is based on Ian McEwan's acclaimed book, Wright and screenwriter Christopher Hampton have crafted a film that feels completely cinematic. You never get the sense, as you do in many of these films, of square pegs being sledgehammered into round holes.

Keira Knightley as Cecilia and James McAvoy as Robbie have to carry the film between them and they do a fine job.

McAvoy's career has been brief but remarkable, however I doubt if he has been better than he is in this film.

Keira Knightley has a long way to go yet but at least in this film she relaxes enough to unclench her jaw. Again this is her best work to date as she pulls off the transition from the brittle, horrid Cecilia to the woman who realises where her heart lies.

I was concerned though about the casting of Knightley and Romola Garai as sisters.

Knightley by my calculation is supposed to be at least five years older than Garai; Briony is 13 when Cecilia has finished university.

However Garai, the younger sister, is three years older than Knightley and they can't really disguise that. A minor quibble but an irritation nevertheless.

The nature of McEwan's novel means I can't say much more about the film without spoiling it. For those who know the book the ending is very faithful, those who don't know the book should rush to see this fine film but be sure to take hankies. Director: Joe Wright Running time: 122mins RUN, FAT BOY, RUN (12a) Comedy that's superfit

Watch the trailer here

Typical. You wait all year for a decent comedy and then three come along at once. This entertaining British entry arrives sandwiched between Knocked Up and next week's excellent Superbad.

It may not be in the same class as those two but it still delivers a bunch of laughs.

Simon Pegg anchors the movie in another of those working class heroes that he does so well. This time he is Dennis, a security guard with neither cash nor ambition, whose life is consumed with regret for one foolish act.

Five years early he was set to marry the girl of his dreams Libby (Thandie Newton) but took fright and left her, pregnant, at the altar. Since then his life has gone to hell in a handcart with the only bright spot being his weekly visit to their son.

Now she has moved in her new man, Whit, a City boy fund trader played by Hank Azaria, When Dennis discovers that Whit is entering a marathon he decides that he will enter as well, beat Whit, and regain the lovely Libby thus reuniting his family.

The problem is that Dennis is overweight, out of condition, and couldn't run the length of himself without collapsing. Does he have the discipline to get his life back together? I think we all know the answer to that.

Most of the humour comes from Dennis's attempts to get fit but despite the presence of Pegg, who also had a hand in the script, it's not as off the wall as Hot Fuzz or Shaun Of The Dead.

The film is more like a conventional sitcom and the perfect vehicle for David Schwimmer's directing debut. After 10 years in Friends you would think he would have picked up a thing or two about handling comedy.

He keeps the pacing tight, gets another good performance out of Pegg, and manages to make the ending sentimental without being overly mushy. Director: David Schwimmer Running time: 100mins THE RISE OF THE FOOTSOLDIER (18) Gangster film loses the plot

Watch the trailer here

The heart fairly sinks when you sit down to what appears to be yet another British mockney thriller glorifying gang culture.

Then things start to look up. For one thing Danny Dyer's not in it, for another Nick Love didn't direct it.

And even though the story seems predictable there appears to be a lot more style and talent behind the camera on this occasion than on, for example, Football Factory.

The footsoldier of the title is Carlton Leach, a man who rose from being a football thug with West Ham's notorious Inter City firm to become one of the most powerful men in the London underworld.

The first half of the film charts his progress rising through the ranks until he sets up his own firm. In the process he becomes addicted to steroids and violence.

Then he becomes peripherally involved with the three Essex gangsters who were found shot to death in their Range Rover in a headline-making case in 1995.

Director Julian Gilbey is obvious heavily influenced by Goodfellas with Ricci Harnett as his Ray Liotta character.

Harnett narrates the film and for the first half there is a sort of anthropological aspect to the film as it moves through the various criminal trends and phases of the 70s and 80s.

Where it comes undone is in the second half which is substantially about the murders, already seen on film in Sean Bean's Essex Boys.

Leach isn't terrifically involved in the killings and he disappears from the film, although continues to narrate. It seems odd to spend an hour getting to know a character and then have him vanish almost without trace. He also falls on hard times in this half of the film but we never learn how or why.

In the end the film becomes a rehash of the murder with several theories put forward and all filmed in blood-soaked detail.

There is a lot to like about The Rise of the Footsoldier. Gilbey seems to be a talented director but the main problem is that there is enough material for two films and he has tried to make them both at once. Director: Julian Gilbey Running time: 119mins