Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 11/6/2015)

As the crowds mill around the sideshows managed by Madame Tetrallini (Rose Dione) at a French fairground, a barker (Murray Kinnell) informs a gaggle of anxious curiosity seekers that the sight they are about to see will appal them. He explains that the occupant of the cage was once a beautiful aerialist called Cleopatra. However, she offended her fellow performers and, as several onlookers recoil in horror, the action flashes back to reveal how `the Peacock of the Air' became `the Feathered Hen'.

Carnival dwarf Hans (Harry Earles) is part of the freak show attraction that also includes a pair of Siamese Twins (Daisy and Violet Hilton), a hermaphrodite (Josephine Joseph), a half boy (Johnny Eck), a bearded lady (Olga Roderick), a bird girl (Koo Koo), an armless woman (Frances O'Connor), three microcephalics (Schlitze and Elvira and Jenny Lee Snow), a `living torso' (Prince Randian) and a human skeleton (Peter Robinson). Although he is engaged to Frieda (Daisy Earles), Hans is obsessed with Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), a glamorous trapeze artist whose sequined cape he is happy to pick up off the ground as she climbs into the dome of the big top to perform her daredevil act.

Cleopatra has recently embarked upon an affair with Hercules the strongman (Henry Victor), who had broken the heart of Venus (Leila Hyams), the seal trainer who is consoled by Phroso the clown (Wallace Ford), whose stuttering sidekick Roscoe (Roscoe Ates) is married to Daisy, who is joined at the pelvis to Violet, who shares some of the sensations her sister experiences when she embraces her husband. Several of the carny folk are romantically linked and the Human Skeleton hands out cigars when his bearded wife gives birth to an equally hirsute daughter, whose arrival is announced by the Stork Woman (Elizabeth Green). Indeed, Browning is at pains to show that their lives are no different from those of the so-called `normals' with whom they are billed.

However, as the epitomes of the body beautiful, Cleopatra and Hercules have nothing but disdain for their colleagues. Cleopatra delights in making Frieda jealous by flirting with Hans and she flaunts the furs and jewellery he buys her because he is so desperate to please her. But, in warning Cleopatra not to hurt her beloved, Frieda lets slip that he has inherited a fortune and the aerialist begins responding to Hans's advances in the hope of becoming his bride.

At the ensuing wedding feast, the other members of the sideshow fraternity welcome Cleopatra and demonstrate their acceptance by chanting `one of us'. However, she mocks their physiques and the cloying manner in which they look out for one another. Moreover, she openly kisses Hercules in front of her groom and throws the contents of the loving cup being passed around the table into the face of the mortified Angeleno (Angelo Rossitto). Worse follows, when Cleopatra hauls Hans on to her shoulders and taunts him as she gives him a `horsey back ride' that causes Frieda to burn with embarrassment and fury.

Desperate to get her hands on her husband's fortune, Cleopatra begins feeding Hans small doses of poison. However, Angeleno overhears her plotting with Hercules and Frieda and her friends keep a close watch on the gold-digger's every move. She proves a cunning adversary, however, and, when the doctor (Hooper Atchley) prescribes something to perk Hans up, Cleopatra adulterates the tonic. But, as the circus prepares to move to its next destination, the panpipe-playing Angeleno maintains a bedside vigil. So, when Cleopatra comes to administer the medicine, Hans (who has been feigning his symptoms) demands to see the bottle at knifepoint.

Meanwhile, Phroso enlists the help of a knife-throwing dwarf (Jerry Austin) to rescue Venus from an assault by Hercules, who is set upon by a phalanx of freaks, as the rain starts to fall. Cleopatra runs screaming from her caravan into the gathering storm and is followed by Hans and his vengeful companions. But her resistance is futile and the action returns to the present in time to reveal the squawking monstrosity she has become since her legs were amputated and her newly webbed feet were attached to her tarred and feathered torso. Of course, this is where the picture should have ended. But the studio cravenly insisted on the addition of a coda that shows Phroso and Venus accompanying Frieda on a visit to the mansion where Hans now lives in luxury. She reassures Hans that she knows he had nothing to do with Cleopatra's fate and declares her love, as the scene fades.

"We told you we had living, breathing monstrosities,' the barker proclaims in the opening scene. But his purpose is not to appeal to the lurid nature of the audience, but to carry the key message of this sadly misunderstood movie: `You laughed at them. Yet, but for the accident of birth, you might be even as they are! They did not ask to be brought into the world, but into the world they came.'

There is no question that the tone changes following the decadent debauchery of the wedding breakfast. But, as he had demonstrated in his earlier tales of circus freakdom, Browning knew that horror was at its most potent when it was laced with the milk of human kindness. It would be interesting to see how modern viewers would react to the original 90-minute version, as it contained such potentially alienating scenes as Cleopatra's mutilation and the emasculation of Hercules (who was due to have returned as a castrato singer in the final scene before it was decided to leave the impression that he had been murdered). But, even more intriguingly, some sequences of knockabout comedy were also excised, as audiences were made uncomfortable by the purported depiction of the cast's physical abilities and limitations.

Such is the focus on the subject matter and casting that it is easy to overlook the contributions made by production designers Cedric Gibbons and Merrill Pye and cinematographer Merritt B. Gerstad to scenes like the banquet, to which Luis Buñuel paid homage with the last supper sequence in his scurrilous assault on the Francoist Spanish establishment, Viridiana (1961). Nevertheless, some of MGM's leading stars also had misgivings about the picture, with Myrna Loy and Jean Harlow respectively refusing the roles of Cleopatra and Venus, while Victor McLaglen turned down the chance to play Hercules. But Browning waived the chance to direct John Barrymore in Arsène Lupin in order to realise a project he had been developing for four years. However, the difficulties it presented are evident in the fact that Leon Gordon, Edgar Allan Woolf, Al Boasberg and Charles MacArthur were brought in at various points to finesse Willis Goldbeck and Elliott Clawson's screenplay. Despite Browning's good intentions, therefore, the film bombed at the box office and his career rather fizzled out after the studio cancelled a follow-up that was to have starred Johnny Eck alongside his twin brother Robert in a story about a mad scientist's misshapen creation. Indeed, Browning only completed Mark of the Vampire (1935), The Devil-Doll (1936) and Miracles for Sale (1939) before trying his hand at being a magician, a bandleader, an amusement arcade manager and a screen painter.

There would be no such long, slow ride into the sunset for two of the principals in John Huston's The Misfits (1961), as this sobering Reno saga proved to be the last completed film of both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. Huston's first outing on American soil since The Red Badge of Courage (1951) was scripted specially for Monroe by her playwright husband, Arthur Miller. But the strain of the shoot hastened the break up of their marriage and had serious implications for Monroe's already fragile mental health. She always joked that co-star Montgomery Clift was `the only person I know who is in even worse shape than I am'. But he would live for another five years before dying at the age of 45 in July 1966. Marilyn would predecease him aged 36 in August 1962, while the 59 year-old Gable would succumb to a heart attack and a coronary thrombosis within a fortnight of the production wrapping. He never saw the picture or the son his widow Kay delivered four months after his passing. She always blamed `the eternal waiting, waiting, waiting' in the heat of the Nevada Desert for his demise and it remains almost impossible to watch this distressingly optimistic melodrama without a heavy heart.

Pained after securing a quickie Reno divorce from neglectful husband Kevin McCarthy, 30 year-old Marilyn Monroe is persuaded to go for a celebration drink by best friend Thelma Ritter. They are recognised by tow-truck driver Eli Wallach, who had given them a lift to court when Monroe's car failed to start, and he introduces them to his cowboy pal, Clark Gable. Allergic to any form of salaried employment, Gable drifts between drives and rodeos with a devil may care attitude that appeals to Monroe after being cooped up with McCarthy. Wallach invites them to see the house he is building in the Nevada Desert and they drive into the wilderness with a bottle of whisky and a need to forget.

Wallach shows the visitors around the unfinished shack and Monroe shivers when he points out the bed in which his wife died while pregnant. Ritter makes sandwiches and Gable suggests they dance to the car radio. He is surprised when Wallach proves to be light on his feet and Monroe so enjoys letting her hair down that she accepts his invitation to stay while she works out what to do with the rest of her life.

Gable offers to help Monroe tidy up and they soon have the place looking cosy. One morning, Gable confides over breakfast that he wishes he had been a better father to his estranged children and she reassures him that he is a good man who just needs to be free. Later that afternoon, however, they argue bitterly when Gable threatens to shoot the rabbit that has been nibbling his lettuce crop and they are only separated when Wallach and Ritter arrive with some provisions.

Regardless of the row, Monroe agrees to join Gable and Wallach in rounding up some wild mustang horses on the plain. Ritter accompanies them to Dayton to find a rodeo hand who might like to join them, but she decides to stay in town after bumping into her ex-husband. She is replaced by Montgomery Clift, an old friend of Gable's who agrees to go mustanging in return for his $10 entrance fee to the bronco- and bull-riding competitions. Monroe is dismayed to learn from Wallach that the animals are goaded into bucking by a flank strap that cuts into their flesh and she is about to leave when Clift enters the arena. She rushes to his side when he is thrown by his mount and pleads with him not to ride a bull. But he explains that he lives on prize money and receives a loud cheer when he is tossed to the ground and sustains a nasty head injury.

Patched up and thirsty, Clift insists on heading to a bar rather than a hospital. As Estelle Winwood rattles a charity tin in the saloon, Wallach takes bets on the number of times Monroe can whack a rubber ball on a piece of elastic. Everyone ogles her caboose, as she bends her knees to build up a rhythm. But she makes them a small fortune and they order more drinks, as she follows Clift into a rear courtyard. They dance together. But he passes out and wakes to find Monroe weeping for him. Clift is touched by her pity and reveals that he went off the rails after his beloved father died and his mother became a different person after marrying his stepfather. Unable to remain on the ranch where he had once been happy, he had become a drifter and now just goes where the wind takes him. Monroe is about to sympathise when Gable staggers outside because he wants her to meet his kids. But they have vanished by the time he returns to the bar and Gable is so hurt by the fact that they couldn't ditch him quickly enough that he causes a scene in the street.

As they drive back to the shack, Clift asks Monroe if she has ditched Gable and wonders if he could become her new beau. She refuses to be drawn and puts him to bed after he wakes in a panic and starts tearing at his bandages. Left alone together, Gable apologises for his outburst in town and asks Monroe if she could imagine herself having a child with him. Once again, she dodges the issue and allows Gable to go to bed alone.

The following morning, Monroe takes some persuading to go on the mustang expedition, as she watches Wallach prepares his bi-plane to scout the area. But she joins Gable and Clift in the cab of the truck as it bounces across the parched terrain to a suitable point to trap the fleeing horses. Clift is disappointed to discover that there are only six horses in the herd instead of 15, while Monroe is shocked to learn that they will be sold to a butcher to be turned into pet food. As Wallach lands the plane, she pleads with Gable to let the stallion, four mares and a colt go. But he taunts her that she has allowed herself to fall in love with a killer before he joins Clift on the flatbed, as they try to lasso the horses with ropes weighed down with lorry tyres.

Following a series of breakneck pursuits, the horses are left tethered and lying prostrate in the dust. Wallach is excited, as he thinks they might be able to start up a profitable business. But Monroe refuses to leave them to their fate and begs Gable to release them. He is considering her request when she overhears him calculating the price they will fetch and offers to give him the $200 if he spares them. Enraged by the suggestion he can be bought by a woman, Gable storms off. But Clift asks Monroe if she would like him to free the creatures. She is touched by his eagerness to please her, but fears Gable would start a fight.

Undaunted by the prospect of a ruck, Clift lets the stallion loose and watches in amazement as Gable not only chases after it, but also subdues it after being pulled along for several yards by the rope around the galloping beast's neck. Monroe is worried for his safety. But Gable strides over and releases the horse, growling that he always intended to set it free, but couldn't allow anyone to make his mind up for him. Wallach is furious, but Clift is resigned to the fact that Monroe only has eyes for Gable. She tries to tell him that she will pack her things and leave Reno. But, as they stop to pick up Gable's faithful dog. Tom Dooley (who had been tied to the plane to keep him safe), they realise that they have finally found their soulmate.

Striving to show how the good cowboy has been forced to assume some of the outlaw's darker characteristics in the post-frontier Western, this is an uncompromising and often gruelling discourse on the state of American masculinity. However, with so many lines in Arthur Miller's screenplay being loaded with prophetic irony, this also proves a deeply moving experience and it's easy to see why the picture's reputation has burgeoned over the last five decades after underwhelming on its initial release.

Abetted by Russell Metty's pugnacious camerawork, Huston's direction is positively Hawksian in its depiction of the camaraderie between working men. Channelling the off-screen antipathy between Gable and Wallach, Huston gives their rivalry for Monroe a palpable edge that is missing from Clift's rather wayward performance, as the momma's boy searching more for reassurance than passion. Monroe is also seeking acceptance and it's interesting to note that she deeply resented the way in which Miller used elements of her own personality to fashion a character who is so pathetically needy and yet who is capable of using her sexuality to manipulate those around her.

The script makes a fatal error in dropping Ritter's cynical everywoman, as her acerbity is the only thing that prevents the narrative from dipping periodically into mawkish melodrama. Considering Miller's status as a literary titan, this has to be regarded as a minor work, as the dialogue often sounds more theatrical than authentic and the denouement is decidedly corny. However, thanks to Huston and editor George Tomasini, the mustang chase is as terrifying and poignant as the rabbit hunt in Jean Renoir's La Règle du Jeu (1939). This was described by its director as a snapshot of a society dancing on the edge of a volcano and the same is true of The Misfits, as Huston caught America on the cusp of equally epochal change. The passing of the long-reigning King of Hollywood is all the more significant, therefore, as is the last of the glamour goddesses, as the studio system was soon to collapse in the midst of a societal overhaul that would replace the values in which a complacent nation had long cloaked itself and hidden away from encroaching reality. This may not have been a wake-up call, but it certainly has the feel of a last post scored by Alex North.

Another single woman finds herself having to start afresh in the East Germany of the late 1970s in Christian Schwochow's West, a lowering adaptation of Julia Franck's quasi-autobiographical novel, Campfire, that has been scripted by the director's mother, Heide. One of a number of German films currently reassessing the truisms about the East-West divide, this complex saga lacks the control of Christian Petzold's Barbara (2012), but it still captures something of the paranoia that insinuated itself into every nook and cranny of Cold War Berlin.

Struggling to cope after Russian scientist partner Carlo Ljubek perished in a car crash on a visit to Moscow three years earlier, Jördis Triebel feels under such constant Stasi surveillance that, in 1978, she makes plans to defect to the West as the faux wife of Andreas Nickl. Carrying just two suitcases, a school bag and nine year-old son Tristan Göbel's cuddly toy, she makes it past Checkpoint Charlie after enduring a humiliating strip search.

However, instead of being warmly welcomed as a highly qualified chemist at the Marienfelde Refugee Centre, Triebel is whisked away for interrogation by agents of the Allied Secret Service, who suspect that Ljubek is alive and well and is being handsomely rewarded inside the Soviet Union for his efforts as a spy. Genuinely stunned by the suggestion that Ljubek could deceive her, Triebel seeks reassurance from Polish musician Anja Antonowicz and her father, Ryszard Ronczewski (who pretends to be mad to strengthen their case).

But she deeply suspects the motives of longtime detainee Alexander Scheer when he tries to befriend Göbel, who is being bullied at his new school because of his Ossi mannerisms and outmoded clothes. Reasoning that Scheer has been cooped up in the centre for so long because he is a snitch, Triebel allows herself to be seduced by married African-American interrogator Jacky Ido, who cautions her that she stands no chance of being allowed to settle in the West until she co-operates with their inquiries and earns the dozen stamps she needs on her application card.

Heavily indebted to production designer Tim Pannen, Schwochow cannily uses the stark surroundings and the endless queues and inquisitions to convey the soul-destroying ennui that compounds the gnawing sense of dread that Triebel feels as she slowly loses her grip on objective reality. However, as the screenplay skimps on backstory, Triebel's fragility feels a touch forced (especially when she starts having visions of Ljubek and overreacts when Göbel secretly buys her a bunch of her favourite flowers), as does her tendency to make unwise decisions at almost every turn. Triebel strives hard to suggest confusion and distress, but she falls short of Nina Hoss's intensity in Barbara, while the support playing is also a little too orthodox.

Nevertheless, Frank Lamm's restless camerawork reinforces the air of unease generated by the bureaucratic rigidity. But the tactic of seeking to disorientate the audience through swish pans quickly becomes as wearisome as the decision to blur the visuals to concentrate the gaze on Triebel and her narrowing options. Similarly, the attempt to compare the plight of dissidents fleeing the German Democratic Republic with migrants arriving in the unified Federal Republic lacks conviction.

Europe's other trouble spot during this period was Northern Ireland and James Erskine attempts in Shooting For Socrates to show how the national football team brought Catholics and Protestants together during the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. Erskine has already proved a dab hand at the retro sporting documentary, with One Night in Turin (2010) centring England's campaign at Italia 90, From the Ashes (2011) recalling Ian Botham's achievements against Australia in 1981, The Battle of the Sexes (2013) reflecting on the tennis challenge between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, and Pantani: The Accidental Death of a Cyclist (2014) questioning the legacy of a disgraced Tour de France champion. But Erskine and co-scenarist Marie Jones have seriously come a cropper with this fictionalised account of a tournament that proved markedly less glorious than the 1982 Mundial in Spain, when Northern Ireland reached the second phase after a memorable 1-0 victory over the hosts.

The story opens in Belfast in October 1985, as nine year-old Tommy (Art Parkinson) makes his way home through a street disturbance to watch Northern Ireland's crucial World Cup qualifier against Romania. His mother (Bronagh Gallagher) doesn't know what the fuss is about, but father Arthur (Richard Dormer) kicks every ball with his son, as their heroes secure a vital 1-0 away victory thanks to a goal by Jimmy Quinn (Barry Ward). They are also on the sofa, as the team cling on to a goalless draw against England at Wembley and manager Billy Bingham (John Hannah) promises that they will give a good account of themselves in Mexico.

Meanwhile, in Letterkenny in the Republic of Ireland, David Campbell (Nico Mirallegro) is driven to the airport by his father Jim (Peter Ballance) to begin his career with Nottingham Forest. He is welcomed by landlady Mrs Thompson (Maggie Cronin) and knuckles down to get himself a place in the squad to face Algeria, Spain and Brazil in the group stages. They listen anxiously as Bingham's selection is announced on the radio and Campbell is ecstatic to find himself included alongside such legends as goalkeeper Pat Jennings (Paul Kennedy), defenders Mal Donaghy (Andy Moore) and Alan McDonald (Patrick Buchanan), midfielders Sammy McIlroy (Ciarán McMenamin) and Norman Whiteside (Chris Newman) and forwards Jimmy Quinn and Gerry Armstrong (Aaron McCusker).

Covering events for the local TV station are Jackie Fullerton (Conleth Hill) and his long-suffering cameraman Albert Kirk (Gerard Jordan) and Tommy watches every programme in keen anticipation of the final group game that will pitch his team of fading superstars and lower league journeymen against a genuine superstar like the Brazilian skipper, Socrates (Sergio Mur). He also starts playing Subbuteo table football after receiving a set as a present from his Uncle Wigsy (Packy Lee). But the country remains deeply divided and army patrols roam the streets amidst escalating sectarian violence. Moreover, players like Sammy McIlroy have problems of their own, as his father is seriously ill in hospital and he has to be persuaded by his mother (Julia Deardren) to go to Mexico because the entire population is relying on him.

Accompanied by his wife, Rebecca (Lorraine Sass), Bingham takes the squad to acclimatise in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Campbell tries everything he knows to impress in training and Fullerton becomes a welcome distraction for the team, as they try to keep themselves amused in their hotel. However, the mood dips when Quinn gets badly injured in a practice match and McIlroy decides to return home for the funeral when his mother dies suddenly. But he is soon back in the fold and joins his teammates in sneaking out of the hotel to spend a night drinking and singing karaoke with Fullerton and Kirk in a local bar. Bingham turns a blind eye to breach of curfew, as he knows they are a grand bunch of lads and that a little relaxation will do them the world of good before they take the bus into Mexico.

Back in Belfast, Wigsy is so desperate to raise the money to fly out to support the team that he takes back the Subbuteo to flog to a secondhand shop. But he manages to get there in time and is delighted when he bumps into some of the squad as they go to church in Guadalajara. However, the luck of the Irish is beginning to run out, as a 1-1 draw with Algeria is followed by a 2-1 defeat by Spain and Bingham knows that they will have to beat the mighty Brazil to make the next phase. The tension is showing, however, and he snaps at Rebecca when she suggests he uses the game to pick a multi-faith team that will boost flagging morale in the Province.

Although still in awe of Socrates, Tommy remains confident and celebrates his 10th birthday with a trip with his dad to one of the giant cranes in the Harland & Wolfe shipyard. Fullerton and Kirk also remain upbeat, even though the latter has broken his leg and they have to plug their transmission equipment into a socket in the stadium tunnel when their power supply packs up. However, as Tommy and his neighbours gather in the local pub, it soon becomes clear that the smallest country ever to have qualified for a World Cup has met its match. The 3-0 loss means elimination and Tommy struggles to hold back the tears. But Campbell, who has finally been given his chance in the first team, is reminded by Jennings to treasure the moment as much as the shirt he has swapped with Socrates.

This précis might give the impression that this is a tautly scripted picture that explores what Mexico 86 meant to everyone connected to the Northern Ireland football team. But this is a sloppy muddle whose sketchy structure and threadbare characterisation is compounded by the hackneyed dialogue and the truly dreadful coaching and footballing sequences (a quick glance at YouTube, for example, would confirm that the goal areas at Wembley were never muddy, as they are here). Erskine may have mastered the actuality, but, on this evidence, he has a lot to learn about narrative cinema. He is not helped by the woeful casting (John Hannah as Billy Bingham, really?) and the fact that none of the actors look anything like the players they are supposed to be impersonating. But Erskine flits between people and places with a lack of dramatic focus and realist conviction that saps all the energy out of what is supposed to be a celebration of a unique moment of Ulster sporting history.

Even the comic relief involving the buffoonishly genial Jackie Fullerton misfires, as does the domestic subplot, because the young fan never gives the impression that football is more than a matter of life and death. Similarly, the episode surrounding David Campbell is so pitifully short on backstory that, even though his Catholic family had been driven south of the border because of the violence and intimidation it had experienced, he makes as little impression on proceedings as Socrates, who seems to crop up in subtitled interview simply to justify the film's feeble title and the concluding freeze-frame caption that reads: `Beauty comes first, victory is secondary, what matters is joy.'

Given the current crisis within football's governing body, the gag about Bingham being dubbed Mr FIFA because he demands `a fee for this and a fee for that' raises a wry smile. But, while this underdog saga is undeniably affectionate and strives hard to make light of its budgetary restrictions, it is bereft of authenticity and lags a long way behind Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn's Terri Hooley biopic, Good Vibrations (2012), and winds up being a lacklustre tribute to a united team and the embattled public it represented with such pluck and pride.

Another bid to present a community rallying round in trying circumstances proves equally frustrating, as Rufus Norris struggles to translate his 2011 National Theatre production of London Road to the big screen. Conceived by playwright Alecky Blythe and composer Adam Cork as a piece of `verbatim theatre', the libretto draws exclusively on interviews that Blythe conducted between 2006-08 following the murder of five sex workers in the red light district that had sprung up in the working-class vicinity of Ipswich Town's Portman Road ground. Ultimately, forklift driver Steve Wright was jailed for life for the crimes and the neighbourhood returned to normal away out of the media spotlight. But, while Blythe and Cork take numerous experimental risks in turning harrowing testimony into melodic commentary, Norris lacks the cinematic ingenuity to give the often disarming diatribes to camera the psychological and kinetic impetus required to prevent the entire enterprise from becoming repetitive and gimmicky.

Blythe was working with a group of London prostitutes on the verbatim project The Girlfriend Experience when the Ipswich body count began to rise. Travelling to Suffolk at the suggestion of her collaborators, Blythe began interviewing some of the sex workers who plied their trade along London Road and soon spread her net to include residents, police officers and members of the media covering the case. She presented the transcripts to Cork and he devised a score that accommodated the disfluencies and fillers of everyday speech, as well as the actual testimony. The resulting `lyrics' resemble a staccato recitative and their delivery requires performers to have a sense of rhythm and timing to complement their dramatic insight.

Within the confines of an auditorium, the experience of seeing these potent, poignant and occasionally provocative passages being performed by 11 actors sharing 70 roles must have been exhilarating. But little of the edginess and audacity of the live show comes across in a film that seems uncertain whether to follow the example of Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) or Tom Hooper's Les Miserables (2012) when it should have been taking its cues from GW Pabst's adaptation of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera (1931) or Joseph Despins's The Moon Over the Alley (1976).

Opening with a newsreader breaking into song, the action relies heavily on the camerawork of Danny Cohen and the editing of John Wilson to bring a little dynamism to Norris's direction, which veers from being arch to cumbersome as he tries to find imaginative ways of framing his singing cast. As in Steven Knight's Locke (2013), Tom Hardy is confined to a vehicle, as his creepy cabby discusses the murders with passengers who are often more than a touch taken aback by his knowledge of the serial killer psyche. Under the quizzical gaze of reporters like Michael Schaeffer, loner Paul Thornley also receives his share of meaningful glances, as he potters around his garden with a twitchy timidity that coincides with many a popular conception of the suburban psychopath. Schoolgirl Eloise Laurence is not alone, therefore, in wondering if every man who looks at her is the culprit.

Prostitutes like Katie Fleetwood admit to being terrified, but have no option than to maintain their kerbside vigil in order to pay their bills. On the other hand, locals like single mum Olivia Colman would be glad to see the back of them and hopes that the slaughter will drive them away from a neighbourhood that has been going to the dogs since they started touting for business and littering the streets with condoms and syringes. Thus, when Steve Wright is apprehended, Colman finds herself in the vanguard of a movement to return London Road to its former respectability. As the trial progresses and a life sentence is handed down, she joins forces with Anita Dobson and Nicola Sloane and her husband Nick Holder to organise a garden festival to reunite and reinvigorate the area and there is genuine joy that the dual menace of prostitution and murder has been removed as the residents see the police cordon tape turn into the bunting that garlands their street party.

There are moments of evocative brilliance here, most notably the Christmas market sequence choreographed by Javier De Frutos, in which the spirit of the season is overwhelmed by the paranoia and fear of the furtive shoppers. But, while Blythe and Cork studiously avoid condescension, their chosen format is simply not rigorous enough to support such complex and controversial themes as the socio-legal status of prostitution, nimbyism, media sensationalism, the duties of local government and law-enforcement agencies and the decline of the traditional residential community.

Some of the utterances are shocking in the extreme, while others dismay with their lack of comprehension and compassion. But, while the text presents an impromptu snapshot of the nation a decade ago, Blythe and Norris often seem to be sitting in judgement rather than reining in their own preconceptions. Even production designer Katrina Lindsay's shifts from steely greys and blues at the height of the crisis to warmer hues as the Pleasantville feel returns conspire in the manipulation of the audience response. Thus, while this Bexley-shot blend of populism and the avant-garde deserves praise for attempting to tackle a delicate topic and its tricky attendant issues in a sincere and innovative way, its mix of spectacle and intimacy, panache and finesse lacks the harmony that is crucial to any screen musical.

Sadly, it's much harder to be positive about either the other British features on release this week. By far the worst of the two is Neil Jones's Age of Kill, a cheap reworking of the basis premise of John Badham's Nick of Time (1995) that is so short of character backstory that it's difficult to care who does what to whom. Indeed, one quickly comes to wish that the hooded villain who sets former black ops marksman Martin Kemp the task of liquidating six targets in six hours had set him a tighter deadline so that the whole sorry farrago would be over sooner. Screenwriter Simon Cluett clearly means well in attempting to expose the iniquitous policies of the far right. But his dialogue rings hollower than a broken tannoy and often leaves a stalwart cast floundering in their valiant attempts to make it sound like everyday speech.

Martin Kemp gives teenage daughter Dani Dyer a shooting lesson before dropping her home to face the wrath of ex-wife Donna Air. However, his aim is less than true during a bungled mission in Spain that results in secret service handler Phil Davis being carpeted by bigwig Patrick Bergin, who regrets that he can no longer cover his back. Although greying, Kemp is still a ladies man and he slumps on to the sofa after a night of passion with Lucy Pinder to watch the breakfast news. She stalks off in a sulk when he fails to pay her sufficient attention because he is listening to Patriot Alliance leader Nick Moran raving about a rally that is due to take place in London that afternoon. However, Kemp's focus is soon restored when a gunshot cracks outside and he looks out of his apartment window to see Pinder lying in a pool of blood.

When his phone rings, Kemp initially disregards the disguised voice on the line. But further casualties on the street below and the news that Dyer has been kidnapped prompts him to agree to take out six targets over the next six hours and he dashes down to a waiting car and follows the instructions conveyed over an untraceable mobile phone. A car bomb accounts for the first victim, while the second is picked off from a multi-storey car park in the full view of middle-aged married witnesses. However, the third refuses to come to his flat window and the mystery puppetmaster warns Kemp that any further slip ups will jeopardise Dyer's safety.

Kemp is not alone in dancing to the terrorist's tune, however, as escort April Pearson is trying to protect her abducted uncle by stealing computer files from her clients. But the rising body count has alerted Scotland Yard, although DI Anouska Mond and DC Chris Brazier are baffled by the seemingly random nature of the killings. Mond is an ambitious woman and deeply resents having Davis and chauvinist superior Peter Brooke take over her case. However, as Kemp dispatches another mark in a pub toilet, he is cornered by prowling cops in a public park and, following a narrow escape from a greenhouse, he is directed to Pearson's waiting vehicle by their mutual friend. They agree to try and track him down to rescue their loved ones. But Kemp's identity is now known and Bergin has sought the permission of Prime Minister Bruce Payne to enlist military sniper Dexter Fletcher to terminate him.

By this time, Mond has worked out that the dead men are all undercover officers who have infiltrated Moran's party and she realises that someone wants the parade to get out of control and provoke a major incident. The arrival of a busload of thugs organised by Moran sidekick Tony Denham seems to confirm her theory. But will she be able to dissuade the arrogant politician from seizing his moment in the spotlight and will Kemp and Pearson learn the identity of their controller before it's too late.

Anyone with an IQ in double figures should be able to answer these questions in a matter of seconds. The unmasking of the demented mastermind should take no longer, as Scooby-Doo cartoons are more intricately and densely plotted than this. The pieces clunk into place effectively enough, but why would viewers give a fig about victims who remains faceless and nameless throughout what is supposed to be a desperate race against time? Jones keeps flashing clock graphics on the screen in a bid to invest proceedings with a little suspense, but this hackneyed gambit simply fails to pay off when it is nigh-on impossible to take any of the principals seriously.

Kemp tries hard to convey a semblance of macho vulnerability, but Ismael Issa's camera is so insistently and intrusively in his face that his limited range of expressions begin to lose all meaning. Davis, Bergin, Moran and Fletcher similarly struggle to make anything of the banalities concocted by Cluett, although Pearson and Mond suffer more than most, as they try to make an impression on this tired and increasingly tiresome Mockney milieu. BritCrime has always felt like something of an in-joke and it was tolerated with a modicum of affection in the early days. But surely the time has come for someone to pull the plug, as no one is laughing any more.

Pitching a pair of ex-army renegades against six teens from a public school OTC, Russell England's Unhallowed Ground is infinitely better by comparison. But the main fascination of this low-budget chiller lies not with Paul Raschid's screenplay, but with the fact that one of the embattled sextet is played by Morgane Polanski, whose parents just happen to be Polish film director Roman Polanski and French actress Emmanuelle Seigner. This is the first feature she has made outside the family circle and she acquits herself admirably. But, as is so often the case with British genre flicks, a solid premise is undermined by flawed construction and inadequate dialogue.

The action opens with a flashback to 1665, as England is in the throes of the Great Plague and Richard Derrington, the headmaster of Dhoultham School for Boys, begins a journal to chronicle his efforts to keep pestilence at bay. For a while, the premises remained quarantined. But, inevitably, the disease started claiming victims until one fateful night when the curse was miraculously lifted after four leading scholars were found horribly mutilated in the grounds. Now, on the 350th anniversary of the incident, principal Andrew Lewis informs OTC seniors Thomas Law, Marcus Griffiths and Paul Raschid that they are being kept behind on the last night of term to complete a nocturnal mission with a trio from Norfield Collegiate for Girls: Morgane Polanski, Poppy Drayton and Rachel Petladwala.

The teens know each other well and Drayton has high hopes of hooking up with Law, who has just been dumped by his girlfriend. However, he has also learned that he has failed to get into Oxford and is in no mood for Griffiths's jock larking or Raschid's concerns that they will be patrolling the perimeter on such an ill-starred anniversary. Briskly pairing himself with Drayton, Griffiths with Petladwala and Raschid with Polanski, Law dispatches the other couples to check the cricket pavilion and the science labs and reminds them that Lewis had promised the odd surprise during the course of the night. Polanski thinks she sees a figure with glowing eyes in one of the changing rooms and Petladwala is spooked when the lights start to flicker and the door jams. But Griffiths calms the nerves by producing a bottle of spirits and insisting that they make the most of their last exercise together.

What they don't know, however, is that ex-Marine Will Thorp and Bomb Squad veteran Ameet Chana are lurking in the woods with the intention of breaking into the school archive and stealing its collection of rare first editions. Hard up since leaving the services, the pair had expected the school to be deserted. But Thorp is dismissive of the `toy soldiers' in their camouflage uniforms and leaves Chana to dismantle the alarm system while he keeps watch. They are soon inside the main building and making their way to the archive. But the teenagers have no idea they have company, as they are too busy listening to Raschid recounting the events of 1666 after Polanski wakes from a dream in which her face is pocked with plague boils.

Eventually, they go on another recce and Griffiths frightens Polanski and Petladwala when he leaps into a corridor with his head swathed in bandages. However, the boot is soon on the other foot when he is taken prisoner by Thorp and Chana and deposited in the gymnasium as they seek the archive. But Law is too busy canoodling with Drayton to realise he has a man down and it is only when Thorp shoots at a phantom lurking in the shadows that the kids realise they are not alone. They only have one intruder to contend with, however, as Chana perishes after the power goes down and, in seeking to reconnect it, Thorp unknowingly electrocutes his buddy whose fingers are resting on some exposed wires in the archive.

Curiously, there is no sign of Lewis. But Raschid, Polanski and Petladwala rush to investigate, only for the latter to get trapped behind a fire door by one of the glowing-eyed spectres. Thorp captures the other two as they try to help her. However, he is distracted when Law confronts him with a rifle on the staircase and Polanski and Raschid are appalled when Thorp shoots their comrade in the shoulder. Raschid manages to get away in the confusion, which also sees Petladwala make an unexpected return. Polanski tends to Law's wound and they carry Petladwala to the archive.

Raschid has beaten them to it, however, and discovers in Derrington's diary that the school was saved from the plague because of a ritual suicide pact that used the four elements of fire, water, earth and air to hold back the forces of evil. The legend has always been that the quartet had been murdered and roamed Dhoultham to wreak their revenge. But Raschid now knows they were selfless heroes and that they are trying to protect the living by preventing their sacrifice from being reversed.

As Raschid reads, Drayton reunites with Griffiths and they find Lewis's corpse in his study. Griffiths is shocked to see boils on his forearms, but they have vanished by the time he returns to the corridor and he wonders what on earth is going on. Thorp starts thinking much the same thing when he turns his torch on one of the ghouls in the chapel and loses his temper when Law, Polanski and Petladwala try to hide in the pews. The latter succeeds in slipping away, leaving Thorp to escort the other two into the archive, where he starts gathering tomes before attempting his getaway.

Meanwhile, Drayton and Griffiths have ascended a back staircase and found a petrol can, some weighting bricks, a noose and a shovel placed around the points of a pentangle chalked on the floor. They hook up with Petladwala and bump into Raschid on the terrace. But, no sooner have they found the others than Thorp returns to hold them at gunpoint because he has been stalked by an apparition in the grounds. He is about to lose his temper when he sees a figure in a plague doctor costume and he is overpowered by Griffiths as he fires at it in frustrated terror.

However, Law picks up his gun and wings Thorp for shooting him. But he also plugs him in the stomach and the other four are aghast when Petladwala rushes into Law's arms and proudly proclaims that she is not a devout Hindu, but a Satanist who is willing to help Law reverse the 1665 pact and, in the process, unleash the Bubonic Plague on a world that no longer deserves salvation. He shoots Raschid in the leg and Petladwala stabs Drayton, as they seethe about the state of society. As dawn breaks outside, Law douses Polanski in petrol and is preparing to set her alight when he realises he is out of bullets and his confusion allows Griffiths to get free. Raschid is stabbed in the scuffle and Petladwala is knocked unconscious. But Thorp has one last trick up his sleeve in order to allow the survivors to flee.

Atmospherically photographed in menacing shadow by Glen Warrillow, this competent, if never exactly unsettling horror makes fine use of Mill Hill School in Edgware, as England and Raschid seek to demonstrate that even upper-crust kids have to go through an adolescent rite of passage. However, they also contrast their sense of entitlement with the way in which squaddies are unceremoniously dumped back on to civvy street after serving Queen and Country. But this is hardly a social tract and England wastes little time in pitting the teens against the burglars. The absence of any caretaking staff is as odd as the fact that the rugby posts are up in the cricket season and a 17th-century scribe would use modern spellings. But such small slips are as forgivable as the initial reliance on wonky walkie-talkies and some rather awkward juvenile badinage.

Things improve once the lights go out and the camera can prowl and the wraiths can start popping up when least expected. The glowing eyes created by Mike Peel look a bit cheap, but the plague cysts are deeply disturbing and England (making his feature debut after spending two decades making documentaries) judges his jolts pretty well. The performances are committed rather than inspired, although Griffiths shows well as the cocky black rugby captain and Thorp makes a hissable adversary. But the difference in the care that Raschid as screenwriter takes over the character backstories persuades the audience to invest a little more emotion in their fate. He also comes up with a decent twist. So, while this may not be particularly scary, it is certainly slick and entertaining.

In The Act of Killing (2012), documentarist Joshua Oppenheimer boldly sought to bring about some sort of closure by having the perpetrators of the 1960s purge of Indonesian Communists re-enact their crimes for his camera. The majority of critics found the exercise compelling, but others objected to its stage management of atrocity and questioned what effect such grotesque pantomime would have on survivors and victim families. Executive produced by Werner Herzog, Errol Morris and Andre Singer, and standing as more of a companion piece than a sequel, The Look of Silence suggests that Oppenheimer always intended to redress the balance. Moreover, by opting to take a back seat and allow those directly connected to the genocide to continue the story, he reveals a new maturity in his approach and an appreciation of the fact that an outsider (no matter how well intentioned and informed) can only delve so deeply.

While interviewing Komando Aksi henchmen Inong and Amir Hasan for his first feature, Oppenheimer discovered that they murdered Ramli Rukun on the banks of the Snake River outside the city of Medan in North Sumatra. The openly boasted about the brutality of the slaying and the incident stuck with the Danish-born director when he met the victim's parents, 103 year-old Rokun and 100 year-old Rohani, and their youngest son, Adi. He was an optometrist and Oppenheimer recognised the irresistible symbolism of having this 44 year-old - who had been born after the Suharto-sanctioned death squads had killed thousands of his compatriots - learn more about this dark episode in his country's history and meet men responsible for his sibling's demise.

With Rokun suffering from blindness, deafness and emaciation and Rohani devoting herself to his care, Adi accepted the invitation and allowed Oppenheimer to set up door-to-door appointments that would enable him to meet some of the surviving war criminals and question them about their memories of the purges. As Inong had already died, Oppenheimer arranges for Adi to examine both Amir Hasan and their area commander Amir Siahaan. In each case, Adi places his optical trial lens frame on their noses and adjusts the glass in each eyepiece until the men can see clearly. The metaphor could not be more blatant, but it could also not be more apposite, as the mood of each patient changes the moment Adi identifies himself.

During his eye test, Amir Siahaan brags about the wealth he accrued when he was at the height of his powers as a sub-district supremo. He informs Adi that he is proud to have played a key part in their people's historic struggle. But the moment Adi accuses him of ordering his brother's barbaric death, Siahaan insists that he was only carrying out orders and attempts to intimidate Adi when he asks why he is so reluctant to accept moral responsibility for his own actions. Amir Hasan is also cocky until the truth emerges. He has written an illustrated short story entitled `Bloody Dew' that showcases his heroic response to the spontaneous uprising of the people and explains how drinking the blood of victims helped keep insanity at bay. As Adi tends to his sight test, Hasan complains that he asks much tougher questions than Oppenheimer had done on their last encounter. But when Adi watches the footage of Hasan and Inong recreating Ramli's cruel killing at Sungai Ular, the camera fixes on his face to capture the eponymous look of silence, as the full horror of what his brother endured finally dawns on him.

Adi shakes his head as he listens to his son reciting from a school textbook about how the government protected the populace from the Communists by exterminating over a million in the name of democracy. But Rohani is much more emotional when Adi admits that he might be prepared to forgive the butchers if they showed some remorse for their atrocities. Her fury implies that the wounds will never heal for those who lived through the nightmare and her resentment seems well founded, given that the Indonesian Film Censorship Board tried to ban The Look of Silence and that survivors groups attempting to mark the 50th anniversary of the coup were threatened with physical violence while the police did nothing to protect them. Such tactics only serve to expose the shameful denial in which successive regimes have indulged and it speaks volumes for Adis courage that he is prepared to confront the descendants of his family's persecutors and then remain after the cameras have stopped rolling to ensure that the innocent are never forgotten.

Although the content is more important than the form, this powerful picture has been sensitively photographed by Lars Skree and edited by Niels Pagh Andersen to capture both the landscape and the expressions on the faces of Adi and his interlocutors. The latter also intercuts some chilling clips from a 1967 NBC news report about the sterling job that the authorities are doing in holding back the Red tide. But this fine film is much less intent on shocking than its predecessor and the dignity shown by Adi in facing the very real demons who changed his life even before he was born is humbling in the extreme.