Alistair Harkness

Glasgow

Film Critic and Feature Writer at The Scotsman

Freelance Film Reviewer at BBC

Film critic for @TheScotsman/ @Scotsman_arts.

Articles

Film reviews: Falling Into Place | Karate Kid: Legends

3 weeks ago | scotsman.com | Alistair Harkness

Falling Into Place (15) ★★☆☆☆Karate Kid: Legends (12A) ★★★☆☆Set in Skye and London, romantic drama Falling Into Place attempts to grapple with the complexities of modern love but too often sabotages itself with the cringier tropes of the genre as its protagonists’ instant attraction gives way to the realities of their baggage-filled lives. That’s too bad because the idea itself is solid enough.
Film reviews: The Ballad of Wallis Island | The Salt Path | Bogancloch

1 month ago | scotsman.com | Alistair Harkness

The Ballad of Wallis Island (12A) ★★☆☆☆The Salt Path (12A) ★★☆☆☆Bogancloch (U) ★★☆☆☆A film about a lonely lottery winner who lures his favourite musician to his isolated home for a private gig, The Ballad of Wallis Island has a premise full of creepy possibilities.
Film reviews: The Phoenician Scheme | Lilo & Stitch

1 month ago | scotsman.com | Alistair Harkness

The Phoenician Scheme (15) ★★★★Lilo & Stitch (U) ★★Wes Anderson is the most singular American filmmaker currently working, but his distinctive style sometimes gives the impression he’s retreating further and further from reality into his own hermetically sealed world of irony and whimsy. Really, though, his films are rife with human drama; it just seeps in unexpectedly in odd ways.
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning review: 'good old-fashioned movie magic'

1 month ago | scotsman.com | Alistair Harkness

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (12A) ★★★★Thirty years on from the first Mission: Impossible, Tom Cruise is back for one last hurrah as IMF agent Ethan Hunt, ready — nay, destined — to save humanity yet again.
Film reviews: Make it to Munich | Good One | Final Destination: Bloodlines | Hallow Road

1 month ago | scotsman.com | Alistair Harkness

Make it to Munich pays tribute to an unassuming teenager with an indomitable spirit, writes Alistair HarknessMake it to Munich (12A) ★★★Good One (15) ★★★★Final Destination: Bloodlines (15) ★★★Hallow Road (15) ★★In 2023 Scottish teenager Ethan Walker was at the start of what might have been a promising football career when he was hit by a car in New York state while away at college on a football scholarship.
Film reviews: The Surfer | Ocean with David Attenborough | The Uninvited

1 month ago | scotsman.com | Alistair Harkness

The Surfer (15) ★★★★Ocean with David Attenborough (PG) ★★★★The Uninvited (15) ★★★★Desire: The Carl Craig Story (15) ★★★If surfing is a state of mind — to paraphrase Patrick Swayze’s guru-like surfer in action classic Point Break — then Nicholas Cage’s new film The Surfer explores what might happen if said mind is thoroughly unhinged.
Film reviews: Thunderbolts* | Parthenope

1 month ago | scotsman.com | Alistair Harkness

Thunderbolts* (12A) ★★★★☆Parthenope (15) ★★★☆☆Even for a studio synonymous with self-referential humour, the latest entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes so wrapped in quotation marks it risks deconstructing itself before it’s even told us what it is. But what’s surprising about Thunderbolts* (even its weirdly asterisked title has an ironic punchline), is how much this approach actually works.
Film reviews: The Accountant 2 | Den of Thieves: Pantera | Julie Keeps Quiet

2 months ago | scotsman.com | Alistair Harkness

The Accountant 2 (15) ★★★Den of Thieves: Pantera (15) ★★Julie Keeps Quiet (12A) ★★★★A moderate hit for Ben Affleck when it was first released in 2016, The Accountant was a fairly disposable action thriller with an entertainingly goofy premise: an autistic forensic accountant (Affleck) with a shady roster of clients turns out also to have been trained by his bully of a father since childhood to become a lethal killing machine.
Revenge of the nerd: Rami Malek is like a weedier Jason Bourne in spy thriller The Amateur

2 months ago | scotsman.com | Alistair Harkness

Spy thriller The Amateur, with Rami Malek’s character like a weedier Jason Bourne, already seems like a relic from a different eraThe Amateur (12A)★★★☆☆Holy Cow (15)★★★★☆The Return (15)★★☆☆☆Rami Malek returns to the territory of his break-out role in TV’s Mr Robot with The Amateur, an espionage thriller about a CIA tech nerd (Malek) out for revenge after his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) is killed in a London terrorist attack.
Film reviews: A Working Man

Mar 26, 2025 | msn.com | Alistair Harkness

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Alistair Harkness

Alistair Harkness @aliharkness

15 Nov 24

Gearing up to chat GLADIATOR II with @Nicola_Meighan on @BBCRadioScot’s THE AFTERNOON SHOW. https://t.co/tmRZtTPkXW

Alistair Harkness

Alistair Harkness @aliharkness

12 Nov 24

RT @TheScotsman: Film reviews: @aliharkness on Gladiator II and Silent Men https://t.co/p8mOoBIvOK

Alistair Harkness

Alistair Harkness @aliharkness

31 Oct 24

RT @SiobhanSynnot: Heavy Scottish accent on @TimesRadio at 1245 when @aliharkness and I join @hugorifkind to review gritty Pretty Woman Ano…