Imogen Poots

‘Knight of Cups’ is repetitive, heavy-handed, “First World” navel-gazing at its most self-indulgent. But my god is it beautiful!

Adapted from an Irvine Welsh novel of the same name, Filth will be a frustrating watch for those familiar with the work, and a confusing watch for those without bias.

Though infused with an infectious anarchic energy, Filth confuses rudeness with rebellion. Even the gleeful excesses can’t save the film’s muddled script as it loses its narrative steam and plummets into melodrama. The wickedness feels less like provocation and more like a diversion to hide the wafer-thin story. In other words, Filth is all talk and no shock.

Aaron Paul stars as Tobey Marshall, a street racer framed for murder by Dino Brewster, Dominic Cooper’s rich racer villain. Rather than prove his innocence or reveal Brewster’s villainy, Tobey’s plan is to beat Brewster in an underground street race hosted by Michael Keaton’s Monarch, a retired racer who sadly does not live in a giant flying cocoon staffed by comical henchmen. With the police and Brewster’s bounty hunters in pursuit, Tobey must race across the country to the starting line.

The new film Need for Speed does not deserve its lead actor, as he proves in a number of the dramatic moments. Even those audience members not familiar with Aaron Paul’s outstanding work on the AMC drama Breaking Bad would likely notice the straining-at-the-seams emotional style he brings to his character here, which is somewhat unexpected in a movie that essentially wants to kickstart its own The Fast and the Furious-esque franchise. Those movies, like Need for Speed, boast plenty of pedal-to-the-metal street racing, outrageous stunts, beautiful women, more racing, more stunts, and so on. Need for Speed, however, tries too hard to be a real, grounded story of revenge and hate, too often tippling over into melodrama.