Henry Barnes

Shepherds and Butchers doesn’t know which it is: the twisty legal drama that’s going to herd us through the issue or the ferocious expose, laying out the quotidian grimness of systemic death. It’s better at the latter. Even though much of the action is penned in the courtroom, the horror – and the interest – are played out in the past.

Duplass and his co-writer, director Alex Lehmann, deliver this strange concoction – an improv bromance mixed with a tragic love story – with delicacy.

In picking at a system until it’s threaded, High Flying Bird is a classic Soderbergh construct.

What’s left after the gore is stripped away is a mildly bloody, meatless horror.

You can’t let your heroes be truly, purely horrible. But McDonagh’s moral twist comes in way too late and much too hard. It leaves you dizzy.

For all its smashed open cuts and swollen eye sockets, Younger’s film remains an oddly sterile experience. For a biopic, it is remarkably featureless.

It’s a rehash that neither develops the character nor betrays him. It simply assumes that we still share his weaknesses and therefore care about the fool.

There are moments when the film aches for focus. This again is down to Galloway. He is, like Blair, charismatic, opportunistic and never entirely consistent. The documentary lives and dies on those strengths and weaknesses.

The film takes on Gabrielle’s listlessness, slumps into an opiated fug. The malady is mysterious and not easily treatable. It just exhausts you. It transforms from a story about release to just another jail. At times it felt like there was no escape.

Big but boring, expansive but cheap-looking, Allegiant spins in place, waiting for next year’s Ascendent to come along and offer resolution. In all candour: you can do without it.