Popular reviews

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  Review by Martin ★ 14

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Technically, spoilers follow, but they shouldn't really matter (because the film is bad)

  A cartoon depiction of misogyny that delights in seeing women whipped, beaten, raped and maimed under the pretence that this will make the pseudo-feminist uplift in its closing moments more genuine. Brimstone aspires to be some kind of serious, important epic, and yet without any kind of substance it falls back on empty pretensions: heavy-handed, nonsensical and often laughable religious symbolism, including "chapters" named after books of the bible; meaninglessly shocking violence (a man is disembowelled and has his entrails wrapped around his neck for no discernible reason); an overwrought orchestral score; and sweeping Western landscapes actually filmed in Europe (a highlight, admittedly, but perhaps the only…

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  Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★★ 1

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  Rated R - 2 Hours 28 Minutes
  Starring: Guy Pearce, Dakota Fanning, Emilia Jones, Carice van Houten, Kit Harington
  Directed by: Martin Koolhoven

  Summary: A man from Liz's past arrives as the new reverend causing her to fear for hers and her family's lives!
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  Amazing how fast time flies when you're watching a riveting film you just can't seem to take your eyes off for even one second! Come to think of it my eyes are awfully dry, didn't blink much throughout as I was afraid I'd miss something! Truth be known I had NO idea whatsoever that this film was nearly 2 1/2 hours long! It certainly didn't feel like it! It wasn't until I starting writing…

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★½ 1

  Reverent and ridiculous in equal measure, Martin Koolhoven’s “Brimstone” is a wild pseudo-Western that trembles beneath the biblical weight of its comically grim story. Told with a steady tone that marries the divine retribution of the Old Testament with the heightened slickness of a graphic novel, this gruesome carnival of debasement may be set in the lawless frontiers of 19th century America, but it might be more accurately located somewhere between Sodom and Gomorrah and “Sin City.” It’s the kind of movie in which an actor from “Game of Thrones” murders someone who’s taking a shit in an outhouse — the kind of movie in which a dying man, choking on a noose made out of his own intestines, still…

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  Review by {Todd} ★★½ 3

  "Mama, are you evil?" -little girl,

  Or... just don't speak.

  There is stuff to like in here... the film looks good and the performances are quite eerie and engaging. There may even be a version of this story that is more tastefully done, that gets across the point(?) of the movie a little bit better. The story has good bones to it and I think telling the story out of order worked quite well in this case. That all considered this is not my thing.

  It's just too much. There is a fine line between making a statement and pure exploitation and this one kind of crosses it for me. I don't even mind a good exploitation film occasionally if…

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  Review by Freyr ★★★★ 12

  Much like the retro resurgence we’ve been experiencing over the last few years, there seems to be an ongoing effort to revive the Western genre, particularly by coupling it with Horror (Bone Tomahawk) or at least with Horror directors (Ti West’s In a Valley of Violence). It’s a trend that I’ve found enjoyable so far, leading to my excitement for the release of Brimstone despite having absolutely no clue what it was really about from the trailer. The presence of the incredibly talented Guy Pearce also got me hooked, and as it turns out, his stock in the film is perhaps the primary reason that it got made. Koolhoven had been struggling to build up the financing over the last…

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  Review by Grooveman ★★★★½ 5

  Well..... that was fun. Seriously though how did this film even get made? There is some pretty fucked up shit in this and its 148 minutes long and has almost zero commercial appeal, plus it looks like it cost a bit to make. Yet for it's long running time I was never at all bored and I felt it moved at a smooth pace. It's an underseen film that I could definitely see getting somewhat of a cult following like Red Hill although they are very different westerns. Oh and Guy Pearce is underrated in just about everything.

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  Review by Andy Summers ★★★★ 10

  I first became aware of director Martin Koolhoven from my Dutch LB mate Krommedijk. As a fan of war films, second only to my love of Westerns, he pointed me in the direction of Oorlogswinter (Winter in Wartime) , a fine WWII film set in Occupied Holland. It was excellent, and knowing of my love for the Western genre, he recommended Brimstone, from the same Dutch director. Koolhoven's Western from 2016 has divided many here on LB, but after a quick look at that cast, it was an easy decision to add it to my collection, but I'm not sure I really knew what I was in for.

  The film opens with Liz (Dakota Fanning) a mute midwife, who's married…

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  Review by Film_Freund ★★★★★ 6

  Ich habe schon lange keinen so überragenden Film mehr sehen dürfen und bin immernoch mehr als sprachlos. Der hat mich emotional dermaßen durch die Mangel genommen, dass ich in gewissen Szenen kurz pausieren musste, weil mir das Gezeigte bei Weitem zu nahe ging. Guy Pearce kommt hier mit einer Performance des Jahrhunderts daher und spielt sich damit nach ganz oben in die Riege der authentischsten und beängstigendsten Filmbösewichte. Welch ein abgründiges Schauspiel.

  Die Atmosphäre ist zu jeder Zeit greifbar, vielleicht mitunter sogar zu greifbar und authentisch. Mir wurde stets mit einiger Verspätung bewusst, dass mir bereits die Tränen kullerten, mir der Atem stockte und sich Gänsehaut breitmachte. Was für ein erdrückendes Erlebnis.

  "Ich erinnere mich gut an sie. Sie war…

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  Review by Chance Hall ★★★★ 1

  First things first, Brimstone is batshit crazy. I mean, seriously - there is no possible way to anticipate the events that unfold just by reading the vague synopsis. I really haven't experienced a story this dark and disturbing in a while, but fortunately for me, it's my kind of crazy. Guy Pearce gives one of the most sinister performances in recent memory and Dakota Fanning excels in using her striking features, eyes in particular, to maximum effect. Told non-chronologically in four chapters (titled Revelation, Exodus, Genesis, and Retribution), Brimstone is a deviant film with deviant characters that spits on the typical three-act structure and is sure to polarize anyone willing to give it a go. Thankfully, I ended up on the side that really enjoyed it. So far, Brimstone is one of my favorite films of 2017. Highly recommended - especially if you're in the mood for something visually stunning, thematically distasteful, and refreshingly different!

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  Review by Ian West ★★½ 4

  This controversial western is fucking brutal and holds nothing back as Guy Pearce plays a satan terminator in the old west, a horrendously vile entity. Brutal whipping, child rape, someone gutted with their intestines wrapped around their neck, pedophilia, hangings, tongue cutting and rape... yeah... it’s a hard watch with a shitload of disturbing atrocity scenarios. I don’t think I’ll be revisiting this. Not really for me.

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  Review by Björn Broekman ★★★★★ 6

  "I could tell you about Hell. About its flames. About the pain. I'm sure you people have tried to imagine what it's like. It's worse".

  It's this quote which pretty much sums up Brimstone as a total experience. From the start it's clear we're not quite going to have some fun in this film.

  Evil arises from the depths of religious depravity, scorching a deathly path of fire through a cursed and mortal landscape, covered by a hideous fog of eternal doom. A demon stands up with it, or maybe Lord Satan himself, in the shape of the reverend, a force of pure, unstoppable rage, unleashing a hell of nightmarish violence in the life of Dakota Fanning's mute Liz. As…

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  Review by drwar5ong ★★★★½ 9

  Vergesst Commodus, vergesst John Doe, und ja vergesst die zwei netten Nachbarjungs aus Funny Games. Nehmt den Reverend.

  Wow..Ich weiß nicht ob ich einem Filmcharakter schon jemals mehr die Pest an den Hals gewünscht habe. Wie Guy Pierce den grausamen und fiesen Despoten mimt, ist genial und gleichzeitig so dermaßen verstörend, dass ich zwischendurch mit dem Gedanken gespielt habe, mir das nicht weiter anzutun.
  Aber die Inszenierung, die musikalische Untermalung, die düstere, dreckige und ausweglose Atmosphäre die dieser Film vermittelt, ist so wahnsinnig geil, dass man einfach nicht davon los kommt und einen, ehe man sich versieht, in seinen Bann zieht.
  Eventuell könnte man dem Film vorwerfen, dass er hauptsächlich durch Guy Pearce und den imaginären Geruch nach Dakota Fannings…