Movie reviews of Filipe Freitas

There’s nothing really groundbreaking here, even considering that this dark and lurid thriller comes from a director who has firmly established himself as an innovator. Nightmare Alley plays more like an ever-shifting, lopsided endeavor that finds the right magic to catch us in a villainously astute manner. Review

Suspenseful and powerful from minute one until the end, the film provides a harrowing look at how an apparently safe gathering could veer into a nerve-racking, life-threatening situation. Review

Staged to be funny, Don’t Look Up fails each and every move. I count no hits but rather thousands of misses in a film that, attempting to depict our times of disbelief in science in favor of conspiracy theories, misses the opportunity with the force of a 100-km wide comet moving at a jaw-dropping high speed. Review

With a few stark shots and coherent vision, Red Rocket finds disenchantment and hilarity in America. Review

Spielberg's West Side Story didn’t thrill me, and I’m still wondering why this half-hearted, unimaginative film was even made in the first place. Review

Persuasively made, I’m Your Man is a smart move that elicits both strong thoughts and feelings without ever becoming creepy. Therefore, just let it gnaw at your own humanity. Review

The enchanting black-and-white cinematography by Haris Zambarloukos is responsible for the seductive looks, and the performances enhance the director’s lingering sense of sentimental nostalgia. This work - dedicated to those who have departed, those who have remained and those who have lost their lives - is fairly enjoyable but not especially mesmerizing. Review

The film won the Best Screenplay award in Cannes, a totally deserved accolade for setting an incredibly subtle example of cinematic virtuosity and poetry. Review

Considering all the facts, the low-key Son of Monarchs is passable. Review

The restlessness of Prayers for the Stolen never ebbs and that makes for a thoroughly entertaining, if somewhat exhausting, 110 minutes. Brilliantly composed, it finds beauty as well as ugliness in this part of Mexico, a place where the cartel enforcement and the violence steal the innocence of the local female teens, depriving them of freedom and a proper life. Review

It will likely lodge in your head for a while, thanks to the rigor with which it was mounted, and the top-notch performances from Landry Jones and Judy Davis. Review

Even not packing a gut-punch, the film tickles then pinches, advancing confidently toward a satisfying conclusion. Review

Rarely as playful or fluid as it hopes, the film declines instead with pacing fluctuations in its middle section - when it mostly relies on Paolo’s idiocy and excessive Italian-accented speech to amuse - and an unemotional conclusion that definitely fails to elevate the account into something satisfying. Review

There’s a clunkiness to A Cop Movie, which, nonetheless, delivers a unique 107-minute distraction. Review

It's not great filmmaking from Moratto, but this horrific rite of passage touches crucial points, so one can have the idea on how these exploitation schemes work, often headed by greedy politicians and linked to a corrupt police force. The denouement gets an extra half-star for its surprising implications. Review

The film’s patient progress is driven and tensed, and seeing those solitary roads wiggling through the woods at the sound of William Ryan Fritch’s apt score, only increases one sense of loneliness and despair. It’s painful what we see; memories of a happy past, the acute awareness of a dark present and the fear of an unknown future. Review

The director has all my respect for what she went through and for trying to do something with it, but there’s so much room to improve here in terms of filmmaking and storytelling. Review

King Richard is no classic but rather a respectable entry in the sports movie genre. This stupendous story deserves to be told. Review

Everything feels very human and surprisingly artistic in this simplistic depiction of ‘life’ before life. We shall all agree in the end that to live is a blessing, but can be painful too. Review

Purposely beyond the good taste, this is one of those cases where the satiric catharsis is too severe to be likable. Review

This flawed horror-movie pastiche with references to the zombie and giallo canons is no novelty but can still provide some fun for those in the right mood. Review

Despite the sweetness and affection demonstrated in the relationships, the film lacks twists and - just like the chatty robot - feels artificial. Review

The cast is faultless, with Thompson and Nagga at their best, while Hall reveals a surprising maturity behind the camera. The shots, consistently ravishing, are perfected with the beautiful tonal contrasts of Eduard Grau’s black-and-white photography. Review

Apart from scattered pointed commentary about how the Italian authorities deal with this kind of cases, or the silly dispute between the police forces and the Carabinieri, the film is marked by predictability and ennui, barely scratching the surface of other mystery-crime thrillers with a similar topic. Review