By Despite dividing opinions on release, I found Rowan Joffe’s remake of the English film noir classic Brighton Rock to be surprisingly decent when I reviewed it back in February. Sure, it shared the same cop-out ending which deflated the Boulting Brothers’ first adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel, but was visually striking and featured a star-making performance from Andrea Riseborough, which I called ‘the first truly great performance of the year’ – and I’m not convinced there have been any better ones since.
American audiences will get the chance to make their own minds up when the film opens in the US on August 26th. It will start in New York (at the Angelika Theater and Lincoln Plaza cinemas) and Los Angeles (at the Landmark Theater), before expanding into a national roll-out. If you’re going to see one English film this year, make it Attack The Block on July 29th, but if there’s room for another, apart from Submarine, this should at least be a decent talking point, especially if you’ve seen the original. Despite the shared source material, for the most part Joffe’s film is a different beast from that of the Boulting Brothers, so your reaction to it may depend on how familiar you are with the 1947 production.