Draft Day (15, 107 mins)

Draft Day (15, 107 mins)

Director: Ivan Reitman

4 stars

AMERICAN football films movies don't always travel well to the UK, and indeed in many cases they don't get released in cinemas at all.

It's slightly surprising then that Draft Day is reaching us, particularly after it underperformed in its home country on its release there back in April.

The good news is that it's actually a lot of fun, especially given the potentially impenetrable nature of its subject matter.

If you don't know what the draft is, and let's face it, who in this country does, it's basically the time when the NFL teams get to pick the best new players for the following season from the college system.

For the purposes of the movie, this mostly involves a lot of backroom wrangling between the managers and owners of various teams in the midst of all manner of bamboozling details involving rounds and running orders.

The focus is on Sonny Weaver (Kevin Costner), the general manager of the struggling Cleveland Browns.

With 12 hours left until the draft, Sonny is getting slightly desperate, making a deal with Seattle which involves giving away future picks in order to get his hands on a star quarterback.

Our own obsession with the transfer deadline day in football here demonstrates that this isn't a uniquely American phenomenon, and these behind the scenes shenanigans are fun and involving.

Much of the time we're watching Sonny on the phone with his rival managers, which could have been a tricky thing to make interesting.

And yet, thanks to compelling insight offered, it's never dull.

Split screens and overlapping frames add a bit of dynamism and it's not without flashes of humour, all of which helps with what could potentially be a quite dry affair.

There are some attempts to fill in the history and background of the game, but you have to wonder why an audience not already invested in American football would be turning up.

Newcomers would do well not to dwell on the intricacies of what's going on and just enjoy the drama it generates.

There's personal stuff too, with Sonny's romantic involvement with a team executive (Jennifer Garner) providing extra tension at work.

Initially this comes across as something of an afterthought, but it develops as the film progresses, and adds a vital human angle to all the wheeling and dealing elsewhere.

Above all there's a great star in Costner at the centre of it. He's starred in many a fine baseball film down the years, and his grizzled presence here is a reassuring one.

He won't help make Draft Day any more coherent for you, but he will help make it a lot more entertaining.

See it if you liked: Moneyball, Any Given Sunday, Trouble with the Curve

Gone Girl (18, 149 mins)

Director: David Fincher

4 stars

Did Nick Dunne kill his wife? That's the question at the heart of this slick, stylish, surprisingly funny thriller from one of the modern masters of the genre, David Fincher.

Ben Affleck plays Nick, who comes home to find his house in disarray and his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) missing.

As the police investigate her disappearance, Fincher and screenwriter Gillian Flynn (on whose novel the film is based) skillfully weave in the details of their relationship, from their romantic first meeting to the cracks that had recently begun to show in their marriage.

This is far from a standard thriller, but one coated with a mordant wit that feels entirely authentic, a sort of everyday facetiousness that means it never slips into melodrama but remains consistently relatable even as the mood darkens.

As secrets are revealed, Fincher tightens the knot mercilessly, then lets you catch breath again with a devilish wink, as the plot snakes in ways that are both audacious and entirely grounded in the characters.

Affleck and Pike are tremendous, the former playing the whole thing behind a sardonic mask, and Pike asked to display many layers as audience empathy for both spouses is tested.

It's great to see a film aimed entirely at grown-ups (and it fully merits its 18 certificate), and anyone with a hankering for a brilliantly constructed slice of mainstream entertainment should find all their needs more than satisfied.

See it if you liked: Zodiac, Gone Baby Gone, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Life After Beth (15, 89 mins)

Director: Jeff Baena

3 stars

It may have seemed that the zom-rom-com genre had played itself out, but this likeable effort manages to find a reasonably fresh spin, albeit with limited ambitions.

Zach (Dane DeHaan) is still hurting from the recent death of his girlfriend Beth (Aubrey Plaza) when he discovers that she's not dead at all and that her parents are hiding her at home.

The twist is that Beth doesn't actually know she's back from the dead, and keeping this news from both her and everyone else in town is the source of much manic, fitfully amusing chicanery.

It's not very much more than a one-joke movie, but it's a nice joke and Plaza is terrific in both normal and zombie mode, even if DeHaan gets much more screen time.

And when you've got the likes of John C. Reilly around as Beth's apprehensive father to provide the deadpan laughs, there's always going to be something to hang on to.

See it if you liked: Warm Bodies, Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead