THE DILEMMA (12A)
RONNY (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Kevin James) have been best friends since college and now work together at B&V Engine Design, the company they both own. They hope to pitch their state-of-the-art electric engine design to executives at a major company. While Nick works tirelessly to iron out gremlins in his design, Ronny frets about proposing to his girlfriend, talented chef Beth (Jennifer Connelly). During preparations to go down on bended knee, Ronny makes a shocking discovery: Nick’s wife Geneva (Winona Ryder) is cheating with a tattooed younger man called Zip (Channing Tatum). Therefore Ronny faces an agonising decision: Keep the truth from his best friend until the automotive company has signed on the dotted line or tell Nick everything, aggravate his stomach ulcer and plunge the engine design project into chaos.
STAR RATING: ***
HENRY’S CRIME (15)
KEANU Reeves stars as toll booth collector Henry, who works the night shift on a highway in Buffalo, New York, then returns home to his broody wife, Debbie (Judy Greer). The marriage stagnates and a deep discussion between man and wife is interrupted by Henry’s friends Eddie (Fisher Stevens) and Joe (Danny Hoch), who need their pal to drive them to a baseball game. Little does Henry realise that Eddie and Joe plan to rob a bank and he will be their driver. Security guard Frank (Bill Duke) arrests a bewildered Henry at the scene, who is sentenced to three years behind bars. Freed after one year, Henry decides to rob the bank for real. “I did the time, I may as well have done the crime,” he concludes. With his cellmate Max (James Caan) as an accomplice, Henry concocts an ill-advised plan to break into the bank vault via the dressing rooms of a nearby theatre, which is staging The Cherry Orchard.
STAR RATING: ***
THE KING’S SPEECH (12A)
WHEN King George V (Michael Gambon) dies in 1936, eldest son Edward (Guy Pearce) ascends to the throne, but his reign is shrouded in scandal as he continues to romance American divorcee, Wallis Simpson (Eve Best). Love triumphs over duty and Edward abdicates, forcing youngest son Albert (Colin Firth) into the spotlight. However, the newly-crowned King George VI suffers from a crippling stammer, which renders him unable to deliver public addresses. With war imminent and the country looking to its king for leadership, Queen Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) approaches unconventional Australian-born speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) on the recommendation of a friend, and persuades him to help her husband overcome his fears.
STAR RATING: ****
127 HOURS
ARON Ralston (James Franco) is an avid mountain climber who made headlines in the summer of 2003 when he became trapped in the Blue John Canyon in Utah, his arm pinned against the wall of the canyon by a heavy boulder. After five days alone, with all hope seemingly lost and his strength evaporating in the sweltering heat, Ralston elected to amputate his trapped arm with a pen knife in the hope he could run for help before losing too much blood. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, who both won Academy Awards for Slumdog Millionaire, reunite for this electrifying adaptation of Ralston’s memoir, Between A Rock And A Hard Place, which reveals the internal monologue of a man who fully expected to die in the baking earth.
STAR RATING: ***
