Fukushima: A Nuclear Nightmare (TBC)
Directed by L James Jones
★★★★☆

ON Friday March 11 2011, a huge earthquake, followed by a terrifying tsunami hit Japan. Among the damage and loss of life, it caused a breakdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. This documentary gives a nail-biting, blow-by-blow account of that event.

With shaky, hand-held footage taken at the time, and interviews with those who witnessed the disaster, we hear from engineers who stayed and risked their lives to contain the catastrophe, from those who were schoolchildren at the time, and other witnesses. 

It follows the survivors attempting to escape the devastation and nuclear fallout, as well as high-ranking government officials racing against time to contain the crisis. It is a frightening scenario.

All electricity was cut off, a China syndrome meltdown was feared. Fifty plant engineers heroically stayed behind to prevent an even greater catastrophe.

Tepco, the company that owned the plant, was not properly prepared to deal with this. Tepco and the government had also lied about how safe it was, and even today it and the government have not learned the lessons, a US engineer tells us.

There were lapses in safety and oversight. Controversy surrounds the disposal of reactor waste water, resulting in numerous protests from neighbouring countries. Some 20,000 died in the tsunami, and the area around the plant is uninhabitable still today.

The expense of cleaning up the radioactive contamination and compensation for the victims of the Fukushima nuclear accident cost billions of dollars.

A vital lesson for all of us.
JG
In select cinemas February 20.

Man on the Run (15)
Directed by Morgan Neville
★★☆☆☆

NOT to be outcompeted in the tsunami of current Beatles movies, this is Paul McCartney’s story of what he did in the 1970s, viz: moving to Scotland, getting stoned, raising kids, raising sheep, founding a supergroup, making it to Madison Square Garden, getting busted in Japan, and releasing an alternating series of hits and duds.

It’s the period of Wings (and unstable collaborations) in between his solo albums McCartney (1970) and McCartney II (1980) where, control-freakery to the fore, he plays everything and doesn’t need a band.

His face is perpetually onscreen and the film is testament to this driven, ambitious ego, and its more or less introspective and apolitical concerns. There’s no mention of Give Ireland Back To The Irish, McCartney’s response to Bloody Sunday. There are hints of psychological background — both he and Linda had lost their mothers very young, for example, which might explain a lot — but this is left unexplored, musically and otherwise.

With little other than home-movies, snaps and TV news footage available, the film adopts an aesthetic of animated collage which is diverting and clever, but unrevealing. 

While Too Many People is a great song of this period, to hear it again is a rare pearl in a trough of nostalgia-industry bunkum. Fans only.
AR
In cinemas February 19 for one night only; streaming on Amazon Prime from February 26.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (15)
Directed by Mary Bronstein
★★★★☆

THERE is no doubt why Rose Byrne has been Oscar nominated for this extraordinary career-defining performance as a woman who is slowly suffering a mental breakdown as she struggles to care for her sick young daughter singlehandedly while juggling her full-time job as a therapist. 

With her husband (Christian Slater) away for work, Linda (a mind-blowing Byrne) has to deal with their child who refuses to eat, a massive hole in their bedroom ceiling and her unsympathetic therapist (impressive comedian Conan O’Brien) all by herself. Mother and daughter move into a seedy motel where Linda self-medicates at night with alcohol, sweets and weed, and starts to hallucinate. 

Writer-director Mary Bronstein delivers a thought-provoking fever-dream drama which explores the pressures of motherhood: a mum who sees her child as a burden and is desperate to escape as her pleas for help are ignored. The lines between reality and delusion become blurred. 

You only ever hear her daughter until the end, and while her illness isn’t identified, the feeding tubes, not eating and being weighed daily at a clinic suggests an eating disorder. 

So be warned this film may be triggering for some. 
MD
In cinemas February 20.

Cold Storage (15)
Directed by Jonny Campbell
★★★★☆

WITH the great tagline “if it spreads you’re dead” this hugely fun but gory body horror comedy starring Liam Neeson is a joyous, retro B movie. 

Neeson plays a grumpy bio terror operative with a bad back, who is called out of retirement to help two young and hapless employees (Joe Keery, Stranger Things, and Georgina Campbell, Barbarian) at a security storage company stop a highly contagious mutating alien fungus escaping from the basement. 

Directed by Jonny Campbell and based on David Koepp’s novel, which he adapted for the big screen, this gut-churning sci-fi, which unfolds over one night, is a riveting and hilarious ride with Stranger Things vibes. 

Neeson is on top comic form, particularly fighting the infected, flat on his back, while Vanessa Redgrave, his mother-in-law, appears in a scene-stealing cameo.  
MD
In cinemas February 20.