Strangely, yet appropriately disconnected and full of space, Steve McQueen's film about a sex addict was not the tumultuous story of raw emotion I expected, but for the most part possessed of the distant voyeurism of a video installation. We see snapshots of the emotionally sterile existence that Brandon (Michael Fassbender) has chosen, a life saturated in porn and sexual stimulation to the point where it has become his evening TV and work coffee break. His life to us is a routine of in-call hookers and web-cam sessions, outside of which he cruises through a nondescript white-collar job which we are told he excels at, and goes drinking with his married boss who hits on any women in any bar, including Brandon's wayward and equally dysfunctional sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan).

When the boss takes Sissy back to Brandon's flat for sex, it becomes apparent that Brandon cannot cope with this – a sexual encounter that does not involve him. He is forced to hear his intoxicant being consumed by others. In later scenes he grapples with Sissy, naked as his towel falls away, his vice-like hand brutally gripping her jaw as what she first thinks is sibling playfulness becomes his expression of disgust at her neediness and wanton advances on men. An equally, emotional brutal exchange takes place between them in close-up as he verbally drills into her how much she revolts him, as an innocent child's cartoon plays on the TV, mocking their broken relationship as he projects his self-contempt onto her. His dedication to the high is ultimately what makes him fail his sister and her desire to form a stable, familial bond. "We're not bad people," she says in voiceover, "we just come from a bad place."

Despite the copious amounts of naked flesh and sexual acts depicted in the film, it is somehow never erotic, never arousing, just a collective portrayal of disconnected sexual encounters which paints Brandon's self-imposed isolation from love. On the one occasion when he brings a genuine date home and begins to undress her, he is unable to form the necessary emotional connection, (and erection) to make love to her, and so he is emasculated, muscles tensed and frozen in anger on the edge of the bathtub, like Rodin's Thinker, while the lady makes her excuses and leaves him. One scene later, he is back on the high, banging, quite literally, a call girl against his glass bedroom wall.

Shame is an interesting film that is worth a watch if you aren't too prudish, but the price of the many night-time tracking shots on New York sidewalks is that there is no character arc, no redemption. I felt a dull sense, empty of empathy for Brandon. But perhaps that's how he feels.

Isn't love like energy in the universe? A quantity that cannot be created or destroyed, but which is converted from one state to another, kinetic to potential, romance to friendship, stored in the heart's star eminating light. The imperceptible change but undeniable gulf between them.

Strangely, yet appropriately disconnected and full of space, Steve McQueen's film about a sex addict was not the tumultuous story of raw emotion I expected, but for the most part possessed of the distant voyeurism of a video installation. We see snapshots of the emotionally sterile existence that Brandon (Michael Fassbender) has chosen, a life saturated in porn and sexual stimulation to the point where it has become his evening TV and work coffee break. His life to us is a routine of in-call hookers and web-cam sessions, outside of which he cruises through a nondescript white-collar job which we are told he excels at, and goes drinking with his married boss who hits on any women in any bar, including Brandon's wayward and equally dysfunctional sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan).

When the boss takes Sissy back to Brandon's flat for sex, it becomes apparent that Brandon cannot cope with this – a sexual encounter that does not involve him. He is forced to hear his intoxicant being consumed by others. In later scenes he grapples with Sissy, naked as his towel falls away, his vice-like hand brutally gripping her jaw as what she first thinks is sibling playfulness becomes his expression of disgust at her neediness and wanton advances on men. An equally, emotional brutal exchange takes place between them in close-up as he verbally drills into her how much she revolts him, as an innocent child's cartoon plays on the TV, mocking their broken relationship as he projects his self-contempt onto her. His dedication to the high is ultimately what makes him fail his sister and her desire to form a stable, familial bond. "We're not bad people," she says in voiceover, "we just come from a bad place."

Despite the copious amounts of naked flesh and sexual acts depicted in the film, it is somehow never erotic, never arousing, just a collective portrayal of disconnected sexual encounters which paints Brandon's self-imposed isolation from love. On the one occasion when he brings a genuine date home and begins to undress her, he is unable to form the necessary emotional connection, (and erection) to make love to her, and so he is emasculated, muscles tensed and frozen in anger on the edge of the bathtub, like Rodin's Thinker, while the lady makes her excuses and leaves him. One scene later, he is back on the high, banging, quite literally, a call girl against his glass bedroom wall.

Shame is an interesting film that is worth a watch if you aren't too prudish, but the price of the many night-time tracking shots on New York sidewalks is that there is no character arc, no redemption. I felt a dull sense, empty of empathy for Brandon. But perhaps that's how he feels.

Showing the trademark reflexes of modern action film franchises, Mission Impossible and the Bourne trilogy, Salt sits more with the former in its relentless pursuit of action and implausible motives, at the expense of adrenaline-filled suspense.

The opening scene is reminiscent of the James Bond film, Die Another Die, as we see Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie, shortly to write and direct her own war film) being tortured in a dark prison cell by nasty North Koreans from central casting, convinced she is a spy despite her pleas that she works for an international oil and gas concern (wouldn’t it be better to claim to be a spy?). The only difference from the Bond film is that they don’t subject Ange to Madonna’s grisly faux-electro title track. Small mercies indeed.

Salt is handed back to the CIA in a prisoner exchange organised by her devoted, arachnologist husband, because yes, he would have security clearance to do that. On returning to work, Salt interviews a Russian defector who names her as an undercover agent of Moscow who will assassinate the visiting Russian president in a few days time. Salt gets spooked by her colleagues’ desire to hold her for questioning and goes on the run to prove her innocence.

It’s all quite entertaining, silly fun with stunts, chases, Eastern-Bloc accents and explosions. There is a twist to the story, but empathy for Jolie’s character is limited to intakes of breath as she subjects herself to painful physical punishment.  There are flaws in her character's portrayed allegiances that I can't discuss without ruining the one, possible surprise in the film, suffice to say that human collateral damage will probably not be counted when loyalties are assessed. But then, that's war, isn't it?

Emotional investment is inversely proportional to the silliness of the script, and so I felt like a spy who didn’t quite come in from the cold, but enjoyed playing in the snow.

If you'd told me I'd be lapping up a film from the director of Pink Panther 2, Harald Zwart, I'd probably have raised a sceptical eyebrow. Yet, I have to say I found Zwart's The Karate Kid hugely entertaining and as good as, if not better, than the original 1984 film. Yes, comparisons are inevitable if you are of an age to remember Mr Miyagi and 'Daniel-San'.

After Warner Bros’ risible big-screen remake of 80s TV hit The Dukes of Hazzard, I was cautiously optimistic when Fox had chosen to resurrect Saturday tea-time favourite, The A-Team.

With a theme-tune guaranteed to displace any annoying song you might find stuck in your head, the series followed the exploits of an underground, ex-military team for hire, AWOL having escaped ‘a maximum security prison for a crime they didn’t commit’.

The not so deep-structure of the TV episodes went something like this:

Small-time bad guys cause trouble in downtown LA, or plan an armed uprising in the desert regions of California, threatening to disturb the suburban peace. The A-Team arrive in a pimped, black van with a red stripe down the side, have a chat with the victims of said bad guys before disappearing into a surprisingly well-equipped barn for a rousing musical-montage of welding stuff together into some kind of super-weapon.  

Bad guys always try to drive towards said weapon/armoured bus/potato gun (yes, really) which results in their vehicles having multiple rollovers before the drivers crawl out of the wreckage like they’ve just had a minor prang in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Bad guys are arrested and suburban householder thanks the A-Team for saving the valley. And scene. It’s basically a western, and they’re the outlaw posse who ride in like The Magnificant Seven.

The better part of the comedy was in the odd-couple relationship between street-talking, black muscleman Sgt Bosco 'B.A.' Baracus (played by wrestler, Mr T) and the maniacal, skinny white aviator, Capt ‘Howling Mad’ Murdock (Dwight Schultz), who would regularly wind B.A. up, earning the ‘fool’ moniker we have come to love. B.A.’s morbid fear of flight was regularly exploited for laughs as he was unwillingly anaesthetised on many occasions to enable the ‘fools’ to get him on the plane.

Slick ladies man, Lt Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck (Dirk Benedict, also of the 70s Battlestar Galactica) lent a dapper cool to the team, while silver-haired leader, John 'Hannibal' Smith (the late George Peppard of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Blue Max) brought a bit of silver-screen authority to proceedings, eyes twinkling as the latest ruffians were dispatched to his catchphrase, “I love it when a plan comes together”.

So what of the movie then?

From the two trailers that have been issued, it begins to look good. There’s a moody exposition as we see the court-martial proceedings that sentence ‘Alpha-team’ for the “crime they didn’t commit”, now during the Iraq war rather than Vietnam. So far, so current.

Then we are introduced to the new team. Hannibal is now played by a greyed-up Liam Neeson, Yup, I’ll go with that. Bradley Cooper, the buff stalwart of rom-coms (Valentine’s Day, He’s Just Not That Into You) moves into action to play the Faceman. Showing comedy under fire while being restrained in a bathrobe, he is the eyecandy for the ladies and possibly, some gents too.

A more vocally expressive B.A. is embodied by former Ultimate Fighting Championship holder, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, bringing the required muscle and van-loving expertise to the mix. The most inspired piece of casting must be Sharlto Copley as Murdock, a character surely in the grip of the strangest form of post-traumatic stress disorder. Copley suddenly came to worldwide attention in last year’s District 9, effectively carrying that film on his shoulders. From what can be seen, he positively channels the Murdoch-mania that Schultz made his own in the original series.

There are though, a couple of shots where the silliness goes too far, even if they do "specialise in the ridiculous". The team steal a transport plane and a tank that is inside, is used as an escape pod just before the plane is targeted and destroyed by an air-to-air missile. So while I’m willing my 8 year old self to accept that they will survive the impact of a parachuting tank hitting Earth, the unforgiveable happens. Faceman takes to the gun turret and in an orgy of CGI ejaculation, starts shooting pursuing planes in mid-air. No. You hear me director Joe Carnahan? No. The original was daft, but it knew it’s limits. If I want a computer game I’ll buy an Xbox.

It gets worse. In an abseiling-down-an-office-skyscraper-to-blow-out-the-window-and-parachute-someone-out-scene, the descending parachute is then hooked on the landing skid of Murdock’s helicopter, and flown away. Why can’t Hollywood directors keep their hands out of the tricks box? It ruins the movie.

So it remains to be seen whether the rest holds up. Let’s hope we don’t all get taken in like suckas, ‘cause I ain’t putting up with no jibber jabber.

See the trailer at the official A-Team website

As much as I like director Ridley Scott's work, I did ask myself whether I might be suffering from sword and sandal fatigue when I saw the trailers for his latest work, Robin Hood. We've had Scott's own genre invigorating Gladiator, the so-so Kingdom of Heaven and Troy. Recently there's been Clash of the Titans and soon, Prince of Persia. So does two hours of romping through the mud wearing chainmail and leather cut the olde English mustard?

The answer is, just about. It's Gladiator with less gore, a bit more Sunday afternoon viewing, with the battlefield antics and drink-and-be-merry village set-pieces to tick the standard medieval boxes.

Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) is an archer serving in the company of King Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston), returning from The Crusades and laying siege to one more French castle before returning to England. A French cook serving soup on the battlements of said castle (this is how serious the French are about food, that it is served in the midst of a bloody battle), finds his way to a crossbow and makes a kebab out of le grand ros beouf, King Richard. Sacre bleu indeed.

Later, the King of France is plotting to stir up discontent in England by planting the Vadar-like Godfrey (Mark Strong) into the court of the newly crowned King John, intent on inciting rebellion in the north with recommendations of raising employee National Insurance contributions, or possibly tax. England will tear herself apart through civil war, and the the French king can sail the Channel and march in under the Fleur-de-Lis to conquer a new land. They hadn't counted on that Australian fella being around though.

Much has been made of Crowe's wandering accent, and it is true that it ends up drowning in the Irish Sea via Newcastle, rather than the Midlands where they were aiming for. Why didn't they just say to Crowe, "you know that actor Sean Bean? Just copy him, that's close enough"? It's really not that much of a problem as Crowe's fantastic growling voice gives the requisite amount of conviction to overrule any geographical uncertainty.

The one problem I had was that the film doesn't have the rousing, oratory qualities of Gladiator, nor does it effectively employ the role of the underdog as that film did. Robin doesn't have much to lose so the tension does seem to be lacking somewhat. British folk singer Billy Bragg unofficially advised Crowe on the contemporary politics of the 'Charter of the Forest', an act of law that said each man had the right to forage in the countryside under the entitlement of common land. This would have been the fight worth seeing rather than the international politics of kings, which while relevant, isn't the meat we wanted on the roast. The final battle on the beach is impressive though, cheekily invoking a reverse of the D-Day landings of Saving Private Ryan.

Cate Blanchett puts in a good, but underused turn as Lady Marion Loxley, there to add a little Katherine Hepburn style romantic friction. Alas, it does little to inform us of Robin's character, other than that he's that gruff, growling bloke who's good at leading a charge into battle on horseback. Perhaps more of the Robin Hood myth will be picked up in a possible sequel, but I wouldn't hold out for it.

John Mathieson BSC, having previously shot this period for both Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, provides a reliably authentic cinematography of muted browns and greens, representing an unromanticised English countryside. Composer Marc Streitenfeld now out from under the wings of his mentor, Hans Zimmer, provides a score that borrows the latter's choppy strings from the new Batman franchise, and also a phrase a little too close to Gladiator for comfort. I also think that the romantic Celtic dance for Robin and Marion sounded too much like James Horner's Irish-inflected score for Titanic. A film of this stature should really have it's own distinctive musical signature.

Robin Hood is likeable, but instead of stirring English hearts to revolution, it gets stuck in the mud of one too many battle scenes at the expense of characterisation.

In contrast to the nostalgic tone of Sam Taylor-Wood's Lennon biopic, Nowhere Boy, BBC Films' Lennon Naked is a refreshingly unflattering portrait of the musician, at his most narcissistic and petulant.

Christopher Eccelston (Amelia, G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra) depicts John Lennon during the years 1967 to 1971, when the creative energy at the heart of The Beatles was starting to wane, and Lennon was to begin his own creative pursuits.

At a BAFTA screening, Eccleston said, "I wasn't a fan. He was deeply flawed as a human being, and in making this film I found that I loved him more but also thought much less of him"

The film opens with an obvious tribute to Gilbert Taylor's black and white cinematography from A Hard Day's Night. We see Lennon and manager Brian Epstein (Rory Kinnear, last seen in Quantum of Solace) take a car to a press-organised reunion with Lennon's long-absent father, who wishes a reconciliation with his son. Writer Robert Jones' dialogue successfully emulates the caustic wit that Lennon was known for, as Epstein is repeatedly taunted about his sexuality, and everyone else feels the sharp side of Lennon's tongue.

Eccleston does a good job with the accent, but more importantly finds the attitude of the man. Occasionally though, perhaps due to the actor's aquiline features, I unfortunately caught glimpses of another famous Liverpudlian, Lily Savage (sorry Chris, I couldn't help it). The other Beatles fare less well, save perhaps Ringo. George's accent barely registers as recognisable, and Andrew Scott as McCartney veers into an odd, disconcerting nasal bass. I hope that doesn't conjure images of a Hofner inserted into a nostril, but it might possibly have sounded more convincing.

The film makes an intriguing psychological sketch. Eccleston envisaged Lennon as someone who "would throw a hand grenade into his life to shake it up" and Lennon's bitterness comes through as he seeks to recreate himself without remorse for those in the firing line, be it his wife, his father or the brotherhood of The Beatles. It is seemingly not good enough that he destroys the world for himself, he has to destroy it so that no-one else can have it either. "The Beatles is my band, I created it!" he retorts when told that McCartney has publicly ended the band.

Naoko Mori portrays a suitably mysterious Yoko Ono, who many Beatles fans blamed for taking Lennon away from them, but is sympathetically portrayed as someone who inspires Lennon’s new identity as an artist. The film makes the focus of Lennon’s torment his father, but credit to Jones and director Ed Coulthard, the blame lands on both pairs of shoulders.

Fans will spot references in the form of Lennon lyrics dropped into dialogue. The Hard Day's Night intro and an image of a naked Lennon curling up in a foetal position around Ono are also subtle additions. Despite a few minor flaws with bootleg Beatles, it’s an accomplished and necessary addition to the growing Lennon filmography.

Lennon Naked screens on BBC4 this June.

After Friday morning's splash across the UK's tabloid press for getting a bit merry with the bouncers at a London club, Kiefer Sutherland put on a good show at BAFTA to talk about the end of his 10 year career as Jack Bauer, counter-terrorism agent in the hit Fox TV show, 24.

Unusually, questions were not taken from the floor at the end of the event, I suspect an overzealous PR intervention relating to the previous day's press. This is the same man that jumped into a Christmas tree in a hotel lobby back in 2006. Is defoliating pine-trees and having a few too many jars really going to stain this man's career? I think not.

Suited and booted, he took to the stage to enthusiastic applause, then settled-down in a statesman-like manner as film journalist Andrew Collins posed the questions.

Sutherland immediately slipped into anecdotal eloquence, relating a story of trying to find St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, while shooting a documentary about managing a band on tour in Europe. After leaving the Tube station, Sutherland and the crew had apparently found the old hospital where he was born a British citizen, to father Donald Sutherland and mother, Shirley Douglas, who were working in the city at that time.

The documentary crew were filming the hospital, with Sutherland in shot proclaiming his joy at finding his place of birth when, he explained, "a giant wrecking ball swung into frame and literally took out the front of the building! I was probably one of the last people to see the old St Mary's Hospital in one piece." Life imitating 24-hour drama perhaps?

It was a tale that indicated his Anglophilia, which came up again when describing how the UK fans of 24 actually helped get the show commissioned beyond the first series:

"The first series had taken off back home, but it didn't really leave the gate until we had the response from you guys over here. It was that, that got the next 11 episodes signed-off"

He was equally magnanimous of the crew and other actors and actresses he had worked with on the series over the past 10 years, and also said that the show had a become a way for many to find a way into work from previously obscure beginnings. If you look through the huge cast list on the Internet Movie Database, you will see one Zachary Quinto made an appearance in 2003/2004. He's doing rather well, isn't he?

Of many clips shown, one was from Season 1 of 24, where Bauer has to execute a colleague (played by future Nurse Jackie regular, Paul Schulze) to comply with the demands of terrorists. After the clip played, he immediately praised the performance of his co-star:

"This guy was amazing. Just seeing that clip there you see what he did with that performance. He's a great guy as well, between takes he was laughing and joking around. That's a brilliant performance."

He added, "I don't usually watch my takes, unless there's something wrong or something to pay special attention to, I hate seeing myself on screen. I always think, 'I could have done that differently, or that better.'"

On the well-documented scenes of torture, he said, "Obviously I don't recommend that people do this in real life. I don't support what went on in Guantanamo, or Abu-Graib. It was good because we had people such as the Clintons saying they liked it, as well as the more right-wing people. I thought we had struck a good balance of people watching the show. It's just that then the right-wing people got talk radio shows and the whole balance went out the window."

When asked what his Dad thought of his work, Sutherland said, "He's really been very supportive and has sent some very sweet messages to me. At first I thought he was being really sarcastic! Mum would say, 'Oh I tried watching it but I had to turn it off after 10 minutes, it was too stressful!' Dad though, was a big fan. We would be having dinner in a restaurant and I would say, 'I gotta go, we're shooting a scene downtown later and...', he would be waving his arms, saying, "No! No! Don't tell me what happens!"'

On the last day of filming the final episode of the last series, it was a scene of high emotion:

"Nobody really wanted to stop. Usually we shoot like crazy, get the coverage we need [shooting the same scene from different angles to provide the editor with enough material], then we move on. We kept finding all these excuses for extra camera angles, doing a shot over here, then over there. It got to the point where we had a POV [point of view] shot from my shoelaces."

"Afterwards, everyone was clapping in a circle around the set, and I went to say something and I felt my voice crack, so I had to look down at my shoes to get out what I was saying. When I looked up I saw the gaffer, David St Onge, big guy, ex-Navy, and as he was clapping I could see his eyes were glistening with tears. That was it, my eyes went, my bottom lip started to tremble. I was gone. We all went to the Radisson for drinks afterward, but it was a short night. No-one was in a mood to party."

"I had an unusual upbringing, I was sent away to school at the age of eleven and in a job like this, when you work 18 hour days, 6 days a week with these guys, they become your family. I saw more of them than my own family."

In all it was a great evening spent in the company of an intelligent and conversational guest. As interviewer, Collins, put it, he didn't even have to tie him to the chair, or shoot him in the kneecap to get the answers he wanted.

If there has to be a sacrifice of a few Christmas trees, then so be it, the world is a better place for an honest actor like Sutherland.

Fans are assured that there is a two-hour, 24 feature film on the cards, to be shot in London and Europe. Let's hope Jack's not angry about that hospital being knocked down.