Parky at the Pictures (DVD 9/5/2019)

It's 1944 and rear gunner Alfie Hammond (Tom Gordon) is fatally wounded while on a bombing raid over Nazi Germany. His crewmates watch him leave the airfield in an ambulance with the same sense of grim acceptance that Spitfire pilot Douglas Miller (Jeffrey Mundell) needs to show during a brief visit home before joining up with his new squadron. Plane mad younger brother, Ron (Eric Flynn), has just been killed and mother Ann (Tina Hodgson) is upset that Douglas has signed up for another unit after having done his bit in fighters. Father Frank (Tony Gordon) is more understanding and offers his son an illicit cigarette in the garden shed, as they reminisce about Ron's reckless love of speed. Douglas flicks through some of the airplane drawings his brother had made before Ann walks him to the station.

Flight Lieutenant Miller arrives at the base to a frosty reception from his new crew. But George Williams (David Dobson) - who had picked a fight the night before in the local pub with a soldier who thought flyboys have it easy and sneered at the contention that they made it home safely on the flip of a coin - takes him to the sergeant's mess for lunch and introduces him properly to Robert Murphy (Henry Collie), Thomas Mayfield (Vin Hawke), Henry Smith (Josh Collins), James Parker (Steven Hooper) and Charlie Moore (Kris Saddler), who remains sniffy, along with Peter Hollingsworth (Roger Wentworth). Indeed, Moore takes such exception to Miller hauling him up for not saluting in a corridor that he rattles on about it for the rest of the day and is still mithering when they go for a bonding session a the Red Lion. 

Disappointed not to be flying because his Lancaster isn't ready. Miller is reticent in the pub and doesn't stop when WAAFs Jo (Rosa Coduri) and Kate (Joanne Gale) join the party. However, Moore also feels awkward when Hammond's widow, June (Leila Sykes), comes into the Red Lion because he feels responsible for his pal's death. He is still down in the dumps the next day during a boxing bout with another airman and he needs to be knocked down before he can bounce back up. Williams also tries to bring Miller out of his shell by showing him the car he has hidden behind the hangars. But he opts not to join the gang at the pub that night and Kate is put out because she has taken a shine to him, even though he is clearly an odd fish.

While Williams gets blotto with Jo, Kate ponders how to get Miller to notice her. But he has been thinking about her while reading on his cot and arrives at the pub in time for Moore to throw up on his shoes. When he doesn't reprimand him and pays for a taxi to get him back to the camp, Kate is suitably impressed and invites him to go and see Laurel and Hardy in Edward Sedgwick's Air Raid Wardens (1943). They go for a walk and Miller tells her how his brother had been evacuated to the country and had been trying to get a better look at a low-flying bomber when he had wandered into the road and had been killed by a drunken motorist. Her own brother had been killed at Dunkirk and, when Miller gets back to the quarters he shares with Williams, he hears how Hammond had been hit on the way back from a raid on Bremen and could have had his bleeding staunched if he had spoken up instead of suffering in silence. However, the mood lightens when Miller discovers that Smith and Mayfield have been making money on the side by selling the same pair of boots to various villagers and sharing a cut with the local bobby who confiscates them as government property.

The following night, the crew is dispatched on a raid on an industrial complex outside Berlin. Everyone is quiet at supper, with only Miller having an appetite. As he prepares his gear, Williams tosses away his hip flask because he has noticed among Miller's belongings on the desk the comic that Ron had clutched in his hand when he had struck him with his car and he realises that the boy he had killed is his new friend's brother. His grim mood is shared by Moore, who freezes when night fighters attack the bomber and Miller has to struggle to keep the plane on course. Moreover, Parker is badly wounded and Williams reports back to his skipper that it doesn't look good. But they drop their load with a direct hit and, even though Miller has to shut off one of the four engines after it is damaged, the crew refuse to bail because they have faith he can get them all down in one piece. 

Ending on a handshake between Williams and Miller and an exchange of words based on the title of Ron's comic, `A Wing and a Prayer', the action fades to black and a caption that 55,000 of the 125,000 airmen who flew with Bomber Command during the Second World War lost their lives. It's a suitably sobering end to a noble enterprise that adeptly leaves the audience wondering whether the plane will land safely and whether Williams will face the consequences of his unintentional folly. 

Known for much of its four-year production as Our Shining Sword, this is quite an achievement from a twentysomething film school graduate and his dad. In addition to sharing the scripting duties with his producer-designer father Andrew and cinematographer Sam Parsons, Callum Burn also edited the footage and designed the sound. Laudably, he has resisted the temptation to show off his directorial gifts by putting the story first and the result is a well-told tale that recalls the tone and rhythm of the postwar films he so clearly admires. Indeed, it's tempting to see Jeffrey Mundell and Joanne Gale as a latterday Michael Dennison and Dulcie Gray.

While they make a charming couple, it's the banter between the stiff upper-lipped Mundell and the shellshocked David Dobson that proves key, as each man unknowingly struggles to come to terms with the fallout of the same incident. Dobson has a Nigel Patrick air about him and his performance rather highlights the more modest talents of some of his castmates. However, Burn just about avoids caricature, even though the narrative relies heavily on familiar tropes. But any acting blips are more than atoned for by Burn Senior's splendid models, which are based on the Lancaster bomber Just Jane at the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre. 

Dozens of features are made annually by aspiring film-makers on shoestring budgets across the UK and so few of them make it beyond local screenings and the odd festival berth. The British film industry should do a great deal more to get these pictures seen by bundling them into touring programmes to play at venues like the Ultimate Picture Palace. It would also make sense for independent producers on the lower rungs to club together and fund an online viewing platform so that audiences can connect with emerging talents for a nominal fee without a percentage having to be snaffled by an established streaming site. With hundreds of bloggers just waiting to provide reviews and social media buzz, it seems astonishing that an entrepreneurial bright spark hasn't had the idea before. Just saying.

There's no such thing as an entirely original plot and the plot of writer-director Tom Edmunds's debut feature, Dead in a Week (Or Your Money Back), feels awfully similar to that of Aki Kaurismäki's first English-language offering, I Hired a Contract Killer (1990). Jean-Pierre Léaud's desperate bid to find hitman Kenneth Colley after a dramatic change of heart is scarcely representative of the Finn's finest work. But it feels like a masterpiece of noir farce beside this genial, but lightweight stab at black comedy. 

Having already failed to kill himself on numerous occasions, aspiring writer William Morrison (Aneurin Barnard) steels himself in preparation for a plunge from a London bridge. He is interrupted by a shadowy stranger in a trenchcoat and fedora, who proffers his card in case William botches the job. In fact, he lands on a party boat passing under the bridge and survives to be fired from his job as a lifeguard by a boss who has tired of his moping. On discovering he can't gas himself in the oven because  he's been cut off, William contacts Leslie O'Neill (Tom Wilkinson) and they meet in a backstreet café. 

Urbane and punctilious, Leslie is a member of the British Guild of Assassins and has to fill out a form before accepting William's commission. He gives him a glossy brochure depicting possible methods of dispatch, but William only has two grand to spend and Leslie concludes a special deal to shoot him from a distance, as he needs to fulfil his quota because the arrival of ruthless Eastern European means that times are hard for homegrown hitmen. 

Promising to complete the task within or week or return William's money, Leslie avers that it will be a pleasure to kill such a nice young man. He files the paperwork at the office hidden within a nondescript building on an industrial estate and checks out a weapon. However, he winces at seeing the number of kills achieved by Ivan (Velibor Topic), who has been voted Hitman of the Year by the other members of the guild, and shrugs on learning that he has not been invited to a conference at a swish hotel by his demanding boss Harvey (Christopher Eccleston). 

Arriving home to wife Penny (Marion Bailey), Leslie chats to his beloved budgies and sits down to tea on a tray in front of the television. However, Penny is less than amused to learn that her husband has decided not to retire and join her on a round the world cruise, as he still enjoys his job and wants to prove to Harvey that assassination isn't just a young man's trade. That said, he needs two bullets to off his next client and he's still feeling a bit sheepish when Penny shows off her latest piece of embroidery while playing bridge with the vicar.

Despite penning his suicide note, William is keen to get a few things done before he meets his maker and Leslie spies on him as he delivers clothing to a charity shop and gives a football to a kid he often sees having a kickabout in the street. But, just as he is resigning himself to his fate, William gets a call from junior book editor Ellie Adams (Freya Mavor), who is interesting in his manuscript and he has to knock on Leslie's car window to ask if he can postpone killing him until he's had lunch with his potential publisher. 

Instantly smitten with Ellie when he arrives at the outdoor restaurant, William is surprised by her enthusiasm for his book, as he has based it around his attempts to kill himself. She is impressed by the twisted darkness of his imagination. But William is less enamoured of her foul-mouthed boss, Brian Bentley (Nigel Lindsay), who wants to repackage the text as an idiot's guide to suicide. 

He is asking whether William would be willing to commit suicide to coincide with the paperback publication when he is shot in the back of the head by Leslie, who has taken up position with a high-powered rifle in a building overlooking the courtyard. Ignoring William's gesture to desist, Leslie fires off another bullet before beating his retreat, leaving William cowering under the table with Ellie. 

Busy at work on a new book about Leslie and his lonely world, William is surprised when Ellie shows up at his poky bedsit to suggest they meet regularly to work on his suicide project. When he admits that he doesn't have much time because he's hired a hitman, she tells him to call it off. But, when he phones Leslie, he hears his ringtone outside his door and the pair have to flea via the rear exit with the killer popping off bullets behind them. Unfortunately, he hits a traffic warden giving him a ticket and, as William and Ellie escape on her motorbike, Leslie is hooded and bundled into the back of a van by a couple of Harvey's oppos.

Even though Brian was on their hit list, Harvey refuses to credit Leslie with the kill and presents him with a carriage clock to mark his retirement. When Leslie pleads for another chance, the cursing Harvey makes a distasteful reference to Michael J. Fox and his Parkinson's Disease as an example of someone who knew when to quit while they were ahead. But Leslie needs his job to feel alive and storms out of the dimly lit office reeling at the news that Ivan has been handed his assignment. What he doesn't hear, however, is Harvey also asking Ivan to eliminate the rival who has become a liability. 

Meanwhile, Ellie has taken William to the country house she inherited when her parents were killed in a car crash. He sees the scars on her wrists and they agree they are terrible at committing suicide. She asks how his folks died and a flashback shows them being crushed by a falling piano and the young William being frustrated that his father expired before passing on his last words of wisdom. Shrugging, Ellie returns from the kitchen with two carving knives and suggests that they off each other. But the wind up kissing and a neat cross-cut takes us to Leslie and Penny sitting up in bed, while she works on a cushion for an embroidery competition and he flips through his scrapbook and vows to show Harvey he still has the right stuff. 

Next day, Ivan breaks into the house just as Leslie is leaving to find William. He kills the budgies and Penny finds them on returning from her contest. She calls Leslie just as he is about to shoot William and, in picking up, he fails to see Ivan stalking him. As Leslie hits the floor, the Russian orders William to commit suicide with Leslie's gun. But Ellie points out that this makes no sense, as he wouldn't have been able to shoot Leslie and kill himself with the same gun. They swap weapons and William tells Ellie he has finally found someone worth dying for. 

However, Leslie only suffered a flesh wound and he bludgeons Ivan to death with a conveniently placed iron. As he is about to shoot William to reach his quota, Ellie suggests that she could take out a contract on Ivan so that he hits his target that way. Despite quibbling that retrospective commissions are highly irregular, Leslie agrees and they dump the body in the river before going their separate ways. 

That night, Harvey pays Leslie a call and threatens to punish him for killing Ivan. But Leslie produces the contract signed on William's unused suicide note and explains that he paid for the hit with the refund from his own hit. When the pair pull guns on each other under the kitchen table, Penny shuffles in with her prize-winning pillow and convinces Harvey that Leslie is ready to retire and accept his clock with good grace. Each man is grateful to her for defusing the situation and, after Harvey leaves, she admits to being relieved that she didn't have to use the bread knife she had hidden behind the cushion.

As for William, he is happily discussing plans for his next book with Ellie when he sees the lad who took his football run out into the road. Living out his dream death scenario, William pushes the boy to safety and his hit by the speeding van. Ellie rushes to his side and lies on the tarmac beside him, as the onlookers start to applaud and the camera pulls into a towering drone shot, as the ambulance arrives and we are left unsure whether William survives or not. 

Numbering Stephen Fry among its executive producers and with Elbow's Guy Garvey sharing a composing credit with Peter Jobson and Paul Saunderson, this isn't just any first-time feature. Edmunds tackles the theme of depression with a light, but responsible touch that mirrors the unshowy assurance of his direction. Yet this lacks the offbeat grimness that made Kaurismäki's picture such a disarming delight. 

In many ways, it's closer in tone to Matthew Butler's Two Down (2015), which featured a pair of incompetent sibling assassins. But the dialogue has nowhere near as much sour fizz, despite the efforts to spice things up by having both Christopher Eccleston and Nigel Lindsay spout profanities as though they were in a Guy Ritchie movie. 

Channelling his inner John Le Mesurier, Tom Wilkinson lacks the lugubrious coffin lid quality that someone like Alastair Sim might have brought to the role. Similarly, Aneurin Barnard would have been advised to watch the young George Cole in action. Nevertheless, they play off each other well enough, while Freya Mavor and Marion Bailey provide selfless support. Indeed, the latter comes close to stealing the show with her disarming cushion speech and the quiet, amoral pride she takes in her husband's proficiency. The whiff of Ealing is unmistakable, but Edmunds confirms the promise shown in the shorts Prada & Prejudice (2007), Is This a Joke? (2012) and 2 Birds and a Winch (2014) and it will be interesting to see what he does next.

Canadian activist Rob Stewart was 24 when he made Sharkwater in 2006. A globe-trotting bid to repair the damage that movies like Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) had done to the reputation of sharks and our understanding of their vital role in the ecosystem, this acclaimed documentary also raised Stewart's profile as an environmentalist. But, while it did much to increase awareness of the savage way in which sharks being harvested at a terrifying rate, the film failed to snag the public conscience in the same way as Louie Psihoyos's Oscar-winning dolphin study, The Cove (2009). Consequently, Stewart embarked upon a follow-up feature, Sharkwater Extinction, which is being posthumously released on disc after its 37 year-old director died of hypoxia during a diving accident in the final stages of the shoot.

The cruel practice of finning was banned in 90 countries after Sharkwater showed animals being caught to have their fins sliced off for soup before being tossed back into the water to bleed to death. Yet, while the film went some way to encouraging others to share Stewart's passion for sharks, 150 million of the creatures are still being slaughtered each year and scientists can only account for around half the number. So, he makes an illegal return to Costa Rica in February 2016 to gauge the extent to which laws are being flouted. 

He learns from conservationist Randall Arauz that President Luis Guillermo Solis has overturned the laws preventing shark finning and he responds to Stewart's challenge at a press conference by saying that local communities have a right to make a living providing they do nothing to excess. Outraged by this, Stewart joins activists Regi Domingo and Brock Cahill on a trip to Puntarenas, where fisherman William Flores informs them that the Taiwanese mafia have bought docks along the coast and use them to store illegally caught fins smuggled in by boat at weekends when the coastguard isn't operating and fly them out of the country legally because transportation is not an offence. Will Allen uses a drone to film fins being stored in a factory belonging to a local millionaire, but Flores refuses to name him for fear of reprisals.

Having beaten a hasty retreat, Stewart recounts how he had goldfish as a kid and had his first encounter with a shark when he was nine. The fact that this potentially lethal creature turned tail on making eye contact taught him all he needed to know and he became obsessed with reversing the demonisation that horror movies had done much to reinforce. He blames Yves-Jacques Cousteau for branding the oceanic whitetip `the most dangerous of all sharks' and heads to Cat Island in the Bahamas in May 2016 to film them, as 99% of the planet's population has been eradicated in the last 30 years because its fin is so large and lucrative. According to Stewart, they are `absolute sweethearts' and, as they swim around him, he notes the curiosity in their eyes and the mischievous streak that confirms their intelligence. 

He goes fishing off Miami, Florida with hunter Mark `The Shark' Quartiano, who claims rumours that the hammerhead population is in terminable declines as `Shark Week propaganda'. When his client gets a bite, Stewart and Australian activist Madison Stewart dive in to film the struggle and remind us that sharks have been on Earth for 450 million years and have a right to better treatment from avaricious and thoughtless humans. The creature is hauled aboard to be photographed and Stewart is distraught at the way it flounders in the water after being released and just gives up the ghost as she watches. She curses those who kill for sport and wonders what goes through their minds when they are having their `fun'. 

Landing in Panama to film fishermen bringing their catch to shore, Stewart points out that apex predators like sharks contain dangerous levels of mercury and shouldn't be in the human food chain. He joins marine biologist Maike Heidemeyer and researcher Sebastian Hernandez in visiting a dump of confiscated fins and is dismayed to learn that over 38,000 sharks have perished needlessly. As this is one of the most important breeding areas in the world, it suggests that poachers are prepared to catch young as well as the adult sharks and such indiscriminate methods are having a ruinous effect on stock levels. 

In November 2016, Stewart makes for Cabo Verde in Africa with marine biologist Joe Pratt and shark tagger Art Gaetan. They film on the dock, as he repeats the message about the loophole in trading fins from container rather than fishing boats and gets aboad a freezer vessel transferring its cargo to a Japanese ship and films the thousands of carcasses in the hold. The sequence is cut to show the risk they took in securing evidence of offshore trans-shipping and the music has the ominous beat of a thriller. But, while the editorial methods may be unduly melodramatic, the flagrancy of the smuggling is shocking and the point is well made that governments that have supposedly signed up to ending the trade in sharks fins have turned a blind eye to the widespread abuse of the system. 

In December 2016, Stewart decides to film gill net fishing off the coast of Los Angeles. This is an illegal tactic that sees sharks, whales, dolphins and sea turtles being caught in nets designed to catch swordfish. They see a blue shark and a thresher dying slowly after becoming tangled in the curtain net, but they are unable to linger as the support boat is being shot at from the trawler and they have to make a rapid getaway. 

A month later, Stewart goes shopping in Miami to show how readily available shark meat is in supermarkets. However, he also takes various pet foods and cosmetic products to Florida International University to have them tested for the presence of shark and is amazed by the results produced by marine biologist Diego Cardeñosa. Over footage of a fisherman clubbing a shark on his boat with a sledgehammer, Stewart reveals that people are smearing endangered super-predators on their faces without knowing it. As he swims with sharks, he urges us to check we are not using products with unlisted ingredients. However, he doesn't say how this might be done, as we don't all have access to university laboratories to run checks. 

On 31 January 2017, Stewart arrives in Key Largo, Florida and a caption reading `The Last Dive' clues the audience that tragedy is about to happen. As they head out, he shows us the rebreathing apparatus that circulates air and allows divers to stay underwater for prolonged periods without causing the air bubbles that often scare animals off. He hopes to film the rare sawfish or carpenter shark and we see the meticulous preparations before the team enter the water. As Stewart glides in the blue depths with his camera, the image fades to a blackness that is only interrupted by a flare shooting up into the night sky and pictures follow of the search for Stewart's body after he failed to surface. The soundtrack carries news snippets from bulletins around the world and the sadness of his loss is somewhat lost in the audiovisual blur that concludes tellingly with the hope that his legacy will lie with those he has inspired to make a difference. 

Accompanied by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's `Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World' medley, a lengthy closing passage shows Stewart at various stages of his life and addressing conferences and rallies to drive home his messages about sharks and the future of the planet. It's well meant, but affirms the suspicion that this is more a work of commemoration than advocacy. However, a closing caption that over 25,000 sharks will have been killed while audiences are watching the film overwhelms the revelation that Stewart's footage persuade the California State Legislature to outlaw gill net fishing. 

There's no question that Stewart was an engaged and effective campaigner and his loss is all the more sobering because it appears to have been avoidable. The circumstances in which his film was completed must have been extremely trying. But the fact remains, this is more a patchwork of incidents and encounters than a concerted and considered treatise. Editor Nick Hector has done what he can with the spectacular underwater footage and the impassioned pieces to camera in which Stewart seeks to sum up each episode. However, with Jonathan Goldsmith's score veering between pounding rock and mawkish strings, the wistful tone depletes the anger we should be feeling at the sickening greed that drives this cruel trade.  

At one point during the summation, Stewart concedes that he often found himself hating humanity after witnessing its barbarity and folly. But he fails to take a rounded view of the situation by ignoring the socio-economic conditions that drive so many people on breadlines across the globe to accept blood money in order to feed their families. This is not the only recent documentary on conservationist themes to assume the white man's burden. However, the focus on Stewart as a personality, as well as an activist, will leave many feeling uneasy about underlying ethos, while they sympathise with the cause.