Philip Bagnall

About Me

I am a London-based film critic, open to new outlets for my work.

My current outlets:

- Loud and Clear Reviews

- Next Best Picture

- Scannain

- Headstuff

I am co-host of 'Culture Corner' on Radio Harrow, and I also contribute to The 250 Podcast.

I am available for articles, reviews, interviews and festivals. I have previously attended and covered:

- Cannes Film Festival

- Venice Film Festival

- BFI London Film Festival,

- Dublin International Film Festival.

Member, Film Critics Association UK

If any journalists, editors, producers etc. like what they see here, get in touch:

Email: cynicalfilm@gmail.com

Bluesky/Instagram/Letterboxd: @CynicalFilm

Recent Work

Loud And Clear Reviews •

Motel Destino Review: A Little Slice of Purgatory

Karim Aïnouz’s Motel Destino is a sexy and colourful little crime thriller. It’s not going to engage the brain too deeply, but it’s a lot of fun.


It has a colourful, campy vibe that’s at odds with the narrative’s plot of deceit and backstabbing, but it makes the film more memorable and enjoyable than it otherwise would have been. It may be chewing gum for the eyes, but it sure is tasty.


Iago Xavier plays Heraldo, a low-ranking lieutenant in a criminal gang. He wants out of this life, but n...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Interview: Joshua Oppenheimer on The End

Ahead of the U.K. release of The End, we interview writer-director Joshua Oppenheimer about oil barons, empathy and existentialist dread.


Amongst the raft of ‘dark’ musicals that hit the screens in 2024, one film stood out from the rest. The End marks the narrative debut of writer-director Joshua Oppenheimer and, much like its director, it’s eloquent, memorable and passionate in its themes. This musical tale of a wealthy family and their assistants living in an underground bunker decades on f...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Interview: Anne Dudley on the London Soundtrack Festival

We interview Academy Award-winning composer Anne Dudley on her role as guest conductor at the inaugural London Soundtrack Festival.


The inaugural edition of the London Soundtrack Festival takes place in venues across the city from 19th – 26th March. One of the main events is Great Movie Songs, a night of favourite songs from the movies performed by an array of guest voices, including Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant and Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters. For a taste of what’s to come, we interview gu...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Black Bag Review: Do You Take This (Hit)Man?

A classy cast and slick filmmaking mark Black Bag, Steven Soderbergh’s tale of married spies, as a wickedly fun dissection of fidelity.


A mere two months later, Soderbergh unveils Black Bag. His new spy thriller sees the director back on narratively familiar turf in the vein of Haywire, but where that film offered unfiltered action setpieces with minimal commentary, Black Bag’s delights are more psychological, marrying Agatha Christie high concepts to deep distrust that’s more Edward Albee th...
HeadStuff •

Mickey 17 Movie Review | R-Patz and Bong Joon Ho are Lost in Space - HeadStuff

When writer-director Bong Joon Ho took home four Oscars with Parasite, it was perceived as a breaking of the language barrier. The little box of subtitles at the bottom of the screen needn’t be a hindrance to cinematic entertainment, or so the new wisdom went. The irony is that his following film, Mickey 17, proves that point in the opposite direction. It’s in English, filled with notable names, and boasts the visual scale with which Bong’s most ambitious projects are associated. However, it rar...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

The Rule of Jenny Pen Review: Elder Abuse Horror

Geoffrey Rush and John Lithgow are terrific in The Rule of Jenny Pen, James Ashcroft’s playful and intelligent tale of abuse and deceit.


Such castings are also recognition that these scripts offer some of the most upfront thematic tests to actor and audience alike. In The Rule of Jenny Pen, two garlanded old hands jump into an existential nightmare with effectively creepy and oddly moving results. Kiwi writer-director James Ashcroft feels no need to move the story from his and source author O...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Christopher Andrews on Bring Them Down: Interview

We interview Bring Them Down writer-director Christopher Andrews about animal cruelty, male toxicity and the perils of learning Irish.


Bring Them Down is a pared-back tale of revenge left unchecked. In rural Ireland, stolen sheep and simmering rivalry cause two neighbouring farmers (Christopher Abbott and Barry Keoghan) to let their tempers and pasts get the better of them. Told partly in the Irish language, It’s a heavy but tense journey, with the two lead actors keeping you rapt as they plo...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Bring Them Down Review: Lambs to Slaughter

Christoper Andrews’ directorial debut Bring Them Down is one-note but tense and well-made, with fiery turns from Christopher Abbott and Barry Keoghan.


It’s a given that their efforts are not worth the pain they inflict on themselves and those around them, but even if the leanness of the storytelling borders on nihilism, Andrews’ film still crackles with tension, and benefits from the commitment of his cast and crew.


Bring Them Down tells the story of Michael (Christopher Abbott, boasting a...
HeadStuff •

Adrien Brody Confronts Modern Evil In Brady Corbet's Bold Epic The Brutalist - HeadStuff

The Brutalist has a lot in common with the architectural style that inspired it. It’s imposing, intimidating, and it embraces its uglier elements, making them a feature rather than a bug. It houses the story of just a few people, but it reminds us that every person’s journey is an epic in its own right. Brady Corbet’s previous films have explored the tales of dictators and pop stars, mythologizing the kinds of people who mythologize themselves for a living. The Brutalist feels bigger by telling...
HeadStuff •

Conclave | Ralph Fiennes Elevates Pulpy Papal Potboiler - HeadStuff

If history (Both recent and otherwise) has taught us anything, it’s that politics is a show. The demands of ceremony and functional government require us to facilitate the ego-stroking of the most ambitious and conniving members of society. Elections are (usually) big enough to dilute the megalomania somewhat, but the conclave of… er, Conclave comes down to a few dozen cardinals in the Sistine Chapel picking their next leader. Gossip and self-righteousness are the order of the day as the Catholi...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Interview: Producer Michael Jackman on Conclave

We interview Conclave producer Michael Jackman to discuss how to choose good films, avoiding trouble with the Vatican, and how to forget politics and have fun.


Among the potential nominees of this year’s awards season, Conclave is possibly the most ambitious from a narrative point of view. It’s a thriller, a character study, and a metaphor all at once. Adapted from Robert Harris’ novel, it’s a gripping peek behind the curtain at the assembly of cardinals to elect a new Pope, it has to balance...
HeadStuff •

Gladiator II | Paul Mescal's Blockbuster Debut is All Talk and No Toga - HeadStuff

You know what’s still a terrific film? Gladiator.


Against all the odds (including on-set rewrites, injuries aplenty, and the death of a major actor mid-shoot), Ridley Scott’s 2000 behemoth achieved box office and awards success, and briefly revived the swords-and-sandals epic as a viable genre. That trend died out a few years later (Scott’s own Kingdom of Heaven was a notable casualty, though the Director’s Cut is well worth seeking out), but the fondness for such old-school epics amongst dir...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Small Things Like These Review: Small Town, Big Secrets

Small Things Like These is modest in runtime and ambition, but it allows Cillian Murphy’s sublime performance to convey its message and anger.


He lifted his head up when everyone else was keeping theirs down, and what he saw changed his life forever. It’s an epic hook on a local scale. It’s a more painful story than The Quiet Girl, which was also adapted from a Keegan novel, but one that seeks to stir its audience in similar ways with its humility and grace.


The story of Ireland’s Magdalen...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Justin Kurzel on Ellis Park: LFF Interview

In this interview with Ellis Park director Justin Kurzel, he tells us about Warren Ellis, making his first documentary, creativity, and more.


It’s been a busy year for Justin Kurzel. The acclaimed director of the likes of Snowtown and Nitram has returned to the festival circuit with two films in one year. His domestic terrorist thriller The Order played at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals, but his second film, Ellis Park, is a very different beast.


Ellis Park marks Kurzel’s first fora...
Next Best Picture •

"THAT CHRISTMAS" - Review

THE STORY – A blizzard hits a seaside town, setting off entwined tales of family, friends, love and loneliness – and Santa making a big mistake.
THE CAST – Brian Cox, Fiona Shaw, Jodie Whittaker & Bill Nighy
THE TEAM – Simon Otto (Director), Richard Curtis & Peter Souter (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 92 Minutes
Richard Curtis has created his fair share of mawkish onscreen Christmas moments, but surprisingly, the creator of “Love, Actually” and “About Time” has never made a film expressly for chil...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Hard Truths Review: A Late Leigh Stunner

Mike Leigh delivers a raw and timely domestic drama in Hard Truths. A fiery Marianne Jean-Baptiste leads a superb cast.


She might be named for a delicate flower, but Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is anything but. From the moment she wakes up (usually from a nightmare), she’s on edge all day. Finding fault in everyone and everything she encounters, she lashes out at anyone who does even the slightest thing to irritate her Shop staff, medical professionals, even the birds on her driveway; no-o...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

The End Review: The Beginning of Something Wonderful

Joshua Oppenheimer’s masterful post-apocalyptic musical The End soars on gorgeous filmmaking, confidence and raw emotion.


To complete an unlikely trilogy, we get The End. This could have had the campest approach to a post-apocalyptic story this side of Roland Emmerich, but it comes from a director who has turned unlikely displays of artistic expression into masterpieces before, and thankfully, he’s done it again.


Joshua Oppenheimer’s career as a filmmaker rests almost entirely on the backs...
HeadStuff •

Festival Review: One of the Year's Best Films | Anora is a breathless whirlwind of sex, oligarchs and dreams turned sour - HeadStuff

Sean Baker has become a most unlikely chronicler of the American Dream for Gen Z. That he gets to do so while never straying from his commitment to telling the stories of sex workers and societal outcasts is miraculous. At the core of all these stories, from Prince of Broadway to Tangerine to Red Rocket, is a desperation to move beyond one’s station in life, and all their protagonists can do is try to hustle their way out. It’s a universal sentiment, one shared by Anora (Mikey Madison), the hero...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Grand Tour Review: A Journey Well Worth Taking

Miguel Gomes’ Cannes-prizewinning Grand Tour is a dazzling marriage of past and present, and fact and fiction.


From some very disparate elements he sculpts a unique travelogue, one that exists behind a veil of sadness, and yet still captures the wonder of many wonderful destinations. This, Gomes’ first solo credit as director since 2015’s dreadfully indulgent Arabian Nights trilogy, returns to the dreamy stylishness of Tabu to create an dazzling (but not over-idealised) portrait of a time lon...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Soundtrack to a Coup d'État Review: Jazz at the End of Empire

Soundtrack To A Coup d’État is a mesmerizing (if overlong) look at how music can both inspire and placate the masses.


The death of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Republic of the Congo, continues to be a black stain on the region’s history. Though only officially the prime minister of the newly independent nation for a number of months before being abducted and shot in 1961, Lumumba’s assassination remains emblematic of the post-colonial struggle in Africa. It’s a grim story,...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

La Máquina Episode 1 Review: Dos Amigos Strike TV Gold

Episode 1 of La Máquina overcomes clichés of the washed-up boxer with energetic pacing, plenty of laughs and charming leads.



Showrunner & Writer: Marco RamirezDirector: Gabriel RipsteinGenre: Sport DramaNumber of episodes: 6Starring: Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, Eiza GonzálezRelease Date: October 9, 2024, all episodes at onceWhere to watch: Hulu (US) and Disney Plus (UK & Ireland)



Haven’t we been here before? A washed-up boxer looks for a way back into the ring, and into the hearts...
HeadStuff •

Festival Review: The Apprentice is Everything a Donald Trump Movie Should Be — Strangely Compelling to Watch, but Empty - HeadStuff

It’s official: playing second fiddle to Chris Evans is no longer the toughest gig Sebastian Stan has played. The one-time Winter Soldier goes from one untrustworthy patriot in Captain America to another in The Apprentice. Taking on the role of Donald J. Trump is an entirely thankless task. Unless you’re gurning for comedic kudos à la Alec Baldwin on SNL, there is precious little point in trying to bring depth to this most vacuous subject. Think what you might about Trump, but you have to believe...
Loud And Clear Reviews •

Seeing the worst at his very best: Ed Wood at 30

Burton’s homage to his favourite filmmaker, Ed Wood, masks warmth, admiration and prescient life lessons in the guise of a standard biopic.


Edward D. Wood Jr. (1924 – 1978) is known to cinephiles as one of the worst directors to ever sit behind a camera. His repertoire of low-budget camp drama has earned him cult status among fans. The infamous likes of Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957) and Glen or Glenda (1953) are still watched with equal measures of derision and admiration to this day. Wood h...
HeadStuff •

An Elegant Crime | 25 years on, The Thomas Crown Affair shows how remakes should be done - HeadStuff

*This article contains spoilers for both the 1999 version of The Thomas Crown Affair and the 1968 original film.*
The idea of a remake of an older film usually invites eye rolls from audiences, and it really shouldn’t be this way. So many of them leave no impact, which entirely misses the point of making a remake in the first place. In an ideal world, a remake will recontextualize the original work, infusing it with changes to allow the material to breathe anew. This is why remakes of beloved c...
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