Gritty cop thriller favours style over surprises

Disappointing biopic of legendary Mexican painter

Nolte kicks smack in Monte Carlo

Analytical US-style remake of slow-burning Japanese chiller

DIRECTED BY Brett Morgan and Nanette Burstein

Infantile, boorish, dangerous, hilarious, unmissable

Three female big-hitters go on an Oscar hunt

DIRECTED BY Peter Mullan STARRING Nora-Jane Noone, Dorothy Duffy, Anne-Marie Duff Opens February 21, Cert 15, 119 mins The opening scene of Peter Mullan's award-winning social drama The Magdalene Sisters unfolds in a Dublin pub in 1964, where Guinness-stained granddads in cloth caps slap their thighs to fiddle-dee-diddle-dee music played by a lecherous priest who salivates suggestively over his bodhran while crucifixes are reflected in whisky glasses and a lusty Irish buck rapes his own cousin.

DIRECTED BY Gaspar Noé STARRING Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci, Albert Dupontel Opened January 31, Cert 18, 95 mins You probably heard about this shock-rocking rape-and-revenge drama from the stir it caused on the festival circuit. And for once, controversy and PC posturing are not being orchestrated into a publicity stunt. Irréversible is as visceral, graphic and wrenchingly full-on as advance word suggests.

Bobby and Billy return in flat sequel