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Ben Stride (Randolph Scott) is out to hunt down and kill the men responsible for a Wells Fargo robbery which resulted in his wife being killed. He meets up with a couple, the Greers, who are travelling South and they go along together, meeting amongst others, former enemies of ex Sheriff Stride, including sinister Bill Masters (Lee Marvin) who has an eye on the $20,000 haul.

Tough, well scripted and played western with Scott, collaborating with director Burt Boetticher for what would be a long working partnership. It's all very serious and sharply done - with a small surprise half way through - thanks in large part to a number of well written and performed characters. Scott is uber cool and tough with Marvin enjoyable as the not so stupid but ruthless baddie. A lot better than most.

Violet (Meghann Fahy) is a widow on her first date in years with Henry (Brandon Sklenar) who takes her to a flashy restaurant atop a skyscraper whilst her sister babysits her young son. Whilst she dines with Henry she is suddenly plagued by texts threatening her and her son unless she fulfills various requests. She soon realises that there is a killer inside her house and somehow the texter can see and hear everything she is doing in the restaurant.

Sharp little Hitchcockian thriller using modern technology to place Violet in an impossible situation where her son will be killed if she doesn't poison her date. It's fun trying to work out who's doing all this and why, and a few neat little twists and red herrings makes it all the more enjoyable and thrilling. It's tense enough and doesn't waste anytime on backstory irrelevances and builds to a genuinely exciting climax. I'm not wholly convinced Fahy was quite right for this, but overall it's fast paced, tense and rather smart.

Professor of philosophy at Yale, Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts) has returned to work after an illness, although she is still unwell and in pain. She is holding a small party with her smart psychiatrist husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlberg) and a discussion ensues between her and colleague and ex lover Hank (Andrew Garfield) over how their friendship will cope if only one of them gets the forthcoming tenure. A drunken Hank leaves with top student Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) who the next morning tells Alma that he raped her, which Hank later denies and says he recently caught Maggie cheating. Who is lying?

This is a stylish and challenging drama following Alma as she faces a series of impossible, moral choices which will result in betrayal and impact her own opaque future. It is not without interest, but mostly I found myself irritated by the constant debate on the various issues to hand as all the characters are universally ghastly wandering through the film intellectualising everything. That said Julia Roberts demonstrates yet again what a fine actress and a big star she is, completely taking over every scene she's in, with Garfield also good playing against type.

In the end I found the exercise to be extremely pleased with itself and ultimately a large chunk of so what, hampered further by the odd unnecessary theatrical gimmick, a truly ghastly intrusive racket of a soundtrack and rather a glib conclusion.