Haywire (15)   ‘Oh you shouldn’t think of her as being a woman. That would be a mistake.” So says double agent Ewan McGregor to Michael Fassbender about Gina Carano in this amusing spy caper that has the beautiful Carano (a mysterious government operative hired out for unauthorised assignments) gallivanting around the globe on…

The Iron Lady (12A)   If I could pick a fault with this stupendous film — a ‘biopic’ of Margaret Thatcher — it would be that it exists too much in a continuum. In other words, the scattiness evinced by the octogenarian Baroness (played stunningly by Meryl Streep) in the early scenes doesn’t change hugely…

South Dakota (PG) There are many controversial questions surrounding the subject of abortion. When does life begin, for instance. Or when can a foetus feel pain. Or has a woman who has been raped more of a ‘right’ to seek termination of a pregnancy than someone who has become pregnant by choice, or carelessness. The…

  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…   A year of predictable sequels, dire re-makes, the occasonal gem, eccentric ‘indie’ films getting swallowed up by the comglomerates — so what else is new? It began with a lot of whataboutery as to whether Roman Polanski was going to do…