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Although not the Barry Manilow biopic that that the title suggests, Panos Cosmatos' Mandy is a definite contender for most surreal film of the decade. Nicolas Cage stars as Red Miller, whose peaceful existence is shattered when his girlfriend, Mandy (Andrea Riseborough), is violently murdered by a fanatic religious cult, sparking a blood-soaked path of revenge. What follows is a lesson in excess, featuring a BDSM demon biker gang, a chainsaw fight, and a deranged Cage lighting a cigarette from a burning severed head. Yet somehow, despite all the chaos, these psychotic elements come together in a genuinely beautiful, contemplative piece of cinema that could have been a complete disaster if left in the hands of lesser filmmakers. Mandy is a brave piece of filmmaking (what other film doesn't present its opening title until 75 minutes in its runtime?), a film set in a version of 1983 that could easily be the distant future. Cosmatos takes his audience on a hyper-stylised acid trip through his Lynchian dream world, influenced by cheap fantasy novels and heavy metal music, eternally building until a tremendously violent climax. Sometimes it feels like there is just a bit too much emphasis on style over substance, and lingering shots of serene landscapes and hypnotic faces seems self-indulgent in a film with a two-hour runtime and about 20 minutes worth of plot, but the filmmakers are smart enough not to let you get bored. Benjamin Loeb's cinematography is absolutely breath-taking, seeming more like a painting than a film in certain moments. At around the hour mark, the arthouse sensibilities of the serene first half give way to a more grindhouse aesthetic, paying tribute to 80s exploitation classics. The sudden change in tone doesn't feel awkward or forced, however, the two halves work harmoniously together; if both were like the first the film would be boring and if both were like the second it would be ridiculous and exhausting, the chaos appearing as a reward for your patience. Cosmatos demonstrates his skill as a director by seamlessly manipulating genres to his will. Mandy is a hybrid creature made up of elements of body horror, revenge thriller, animation (both 2-D and stop-motion), and even delving into the realms of advertising with a fake vintage-style trailer for macaroni cheese featuring a goblin throwing up pasta all over a child's head. The animation in particular is a refreshing break from the live-action when it finally appears; the 2-D animation is reminiscent of 80s thrash metal album artwork, in-keeping with the film's retro aesthetic, while the stop-motion effect is used for some particularly shocking face-melting effects after Cage samples some especially potent hallucinogenic. Nicolas Cage's performances have often been derided by critics for being over the top or just straight-up silly. With Mandy, however, he proves that all he needed was to be unleashed in the right environment with a director just as unhinged as he is, with what might be his finest performance to date. Mandy allows Cage to deliver his full range, from a mellow and calm opening, to the best screaming scene by any actor since, well, Nicolas Cage in The Wicker Man, to completely deranged fury in the second half. Cage is absolutely in his element as he carves his way through the film's final act, and you can tell he's loving every second. In fact, there's not much not to love performance wise; Linus Roache turns in some of his finest work as the repulsive and sinister cult leader, Jeremiah Sand, and Andrea Riseborough is haunting as Mandy - wide-eyed and ghostly. Some 80s retro credibility is added by veteran actor Bill Duke who turns up for a convenient expositional sequence needed to advance the plot and explain some of the more baffling aspects of Cosmatos' mythology. Mandy is a film that is certain to divide audiences, it doesn't really belong in either the arthouse or mainstream camps of cinema. Its overlong, contemplative style is sure to put off some viewers expecting a traditional, gritty revenge film. However, in a market currently oversaturated with remakes and extended universe franchise building, Mandy is certainly a breath of fresh air and a rewarding cinematic experience for those willing to give it the attention it deserves.

Eli Roth's Death Wish remake is perhaps best summed up by the fact that it starts making memes of itself halfway through its runtime. A stale, obsolete concept desperately clinging to technology and social media references in an attempt to stay relevant. Michael Winner's original version from 1974 was a reprehensible right-wing propaganda film, advocating for private gun ownership and vigilante justice, which opened with a shot of Charles Bronson in budgie smugglers. Roth's is somehow worse. Bruce Willis stars as trauma surgeon Paul Kersey, a family man whose wife and daughter are violently attacked during a home invasion. At his wife's funeral, he is subjected to a bizarrely timed rant from his apparently fascist father-in-law about taking justice into your own hands, inspiring him to go on a vigilante murder spree and seek revenge. At this point in his career, Willis has shot so many bad guys in the head that now he just looks bored doing it. Death Wish is no exception. In each moment you can practically see him calculating whether his paycheck is really worth it. In one early scene the filmmakers are really stressing how great it is for Willis to be a middle-class, white man: his daughter has just got into a great university, his wife is about to pass her Ph.D., and on top of that it's his birthday. He says, "I'm happy," but his expression says, "I'm waiting for the sweet embrace of death to save me from this empty existence." Later on, he reacts to his wife's death in the same way he reacts to inconveniently being called into work - with a blank expression and a murmured line reading. An equally bald and equally uninspiring casting is Dean Norris, who phones in the exact same cop persona that he did in Breaking Bad, minus the obsession with minerals. Tonally, Death Wish is all over the place. The grim subject matter of home invasion and vigilantism is balanced by strange comic moments such as Dean Norris' struggle to keep his diet on track and Willis' brutal murders are balanced out by an almost slapstick killing involving a bowling ball. Where the violence in the Bronson version was morbid and mean-spirited, this version just needs to make its mind up; with scenes ranging from the almost unbearably gruesome to the downright hilarious. Willis' transformation from a "pussy" who won't even throw a punch at a football match, to literally torturing a man to death, is as implausible as anyone thinking this film was a good idea in the first place. It reeks of hyper-masculine fantasy and of someone who's been living on a diet of hard-man action films and Punisher comics. The biggest problem with Death Wish however, is its absolute refusal to say anything of substance about anything whatsoever. Although Winner's politics are so right-wing that his original film could function as an NRA advertisement, it at least has the decency to pick a side. With a contemporary reimagining of Death Wish, the filmmakers had the opportunity to create a scathing criticism of modern-day American society and ongoing gun control debates. Instead, Roth and screenwriter Joe Carnahan present us with a film that's too cowardly to take a stance, um-ing and ah-ing around the central issues of gun crime and refusing to take the obvious stance: it's wrong. The timing of the film's release seems tasteless in light of movements such as Black Lives Matter and recent outrage regarding police brutality. The fact that Willis can walk out into the street and shoot down people of colour in broad daylight without consequence shows a complete lack of regard for current social circumstances. There are attempts to justify this throughout the film as we are subjected to seemingly endless cutaways to radio hosts debating the pros and cons of vigilante justice, presumably to pad out the running time, but also as a get out of jail free card against anyone who would criticise the film for its ideology. Extra padding is also provided by pointless flashbacks to key events that happened less than 45 minutes previously, presumably because the film knows you couldn't be bothered to pay attention to it in the first place. The overall effect of this half-hearted, pandering effort is to leave the audience just as unengaged as when they came in. If the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, how do you stop a bad guy with a camera?

There are two major factors that separate Nick Love's reimagining of his football hooligan film The Firm from Alan Clarke's original 1988 television play: the first is a perspective change from the point of view of the repulsive yet compelling character Bex (played in this version by Paul Anderson, who does a fair job of imitating Gary Oldman but doesn't bring anything new to the table), to that of whiny, annoying, dry-lunch Dom who just appears to exist in every scene he's in. The second difference is that it's not very good. Love's direction is the epitome of style over substance, opting for an over-stylised imagining of 1980s Britain complete with neon lights, a nostalgic soundtrack, and a never-ending slew of tracksuits that look like they were produced in a Haribo factory. The script is also significantly lighter with several comic relief moments scattered around an otherwise dark story. While this may make for a more visually appealing and accessible film, it loses the savagery and sense of urgency that Clarke's original had. It also doesn't help the film that Love seems to be aware that his screenplay is inferior to the source material, with key scenes from the original being replicated seemingly beat for beat and inserted clumsily into the narrative when it begins to falter. Aside from Paul Anderson's Bex, none of the performances are particularly standout, with Daniel Mays completely wasted as Bex's rival, Yeti, who is more or less completely side-lined throughout the film. Overall, Love's remake is an ambitious attempt to update a somewhat dated story for a contemporary audience which ultimately hits the goalposts.