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Vertigo Releasing has announced the UK digital release of JUST PLAY DEAD, a tropical crime thriller starring Academy Award winner and Golden Globe nominee Samuel L. Jackson and French cinema icon Eva Green. The film arrives on digital platforms on October 5th.
Directed by Martin Campbell, whose credits include Casino Royale, GoldenEye and The Mask of Zorro, JUST PLAY DEAD follows Jack, played by Jackson, as he attempts to escape the authorities after embezzling money.
Jack believes he has found the perfect way to disappear. If everyone thinks he is dead, the authorities cannot arrest him. His plan is to frame his wife's lover for his murder, allowing Jack to split a $30 million insurance payout with his supposedly grieving wife, Nora.
However, Nora has other ideas.
Rather than helping Jack fake his death, Nora decides to kill him for real, frame her lover and keep the entire insurance payout for herself. Her plans become even more complicated thanks to Danny, a homicide detective who is in love with her and soon finds himself caught in the increasingly dangerous scheme.
With everyone hiding their true intentions, JUST PLAY DEAD promises a film noir thriller built around shifting loyalties, deception and competing plans. As Jack and Nora's schemes collide, the question becomes who will survive the tangled web they have created.
Alongside Jackson and Green, the cast includes Eoin Macken, María Pedraza and Jason Fernández.
Following its US theatrical release through Vertical Entertainment on August 28th, JUST PLAY DEAD will arrive in the UK digitally on October 5th.
The film will be available through Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Sky Store, YouTube Movies and Rakuten.
Matt Johnson’s recent cult smash hit NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE, launches on 4K UHD and Blu-ray on 21 September 2026.
And to celebrate we have a copy on 4K-UHD and a copy on standard Blu-ray to give away!
Synopsis:
When their plan to book a show at the Rivoli goes horribly wrong, Matt and Jay accidentally travel back to the year 2008.
The Visions release will feature a series of exclusive extras, including:
Commentary with Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol
Alternate Opening
Animatics: Back to 2008, Running Cable
Ethan Deleted Scene
Figured It Out Featurette
Home Movies
Nirvanna the Band the Show Episode 101 - The Banner
Packaging for the release will incorporate collector’s edition O-ring packaging, four exclusive art-cards designed by Jay McCarrol, and a reversible poster.
3. When the competition ends as indicated on this page, any and all entries received after this point will not count and emails blacklisted due to not checking this page first.
4. Winners will be chosen randomly and will be informed via email.
5. Entries that come directly from other websites will not be accepted.
Remembrance is heading to UK digital in October, bringing a dark psychological mystery centred on a young woman who wakes from a coma with no idea who she is or what has happened to her.
Written, directed and starring James Matthew Denton, with Richard Oakes co-directing and Marc Zammit producing, the British feature stars Alyssa Haymor as Grace, who survives a brutal kidnapping before waking in hospital after a week-long coma. Her injuries are serious, but the most troubling thing is what she cannot remember.
Grace has no identity, no recollection of the kidnapping and only fractured flashes of memory that offer little clarity. Detectives investigating the case must therefore work with a victim who cannot tell them what happened, while the person responsible remains at large.
Grace is eventually moved to protected accommodation in an isolated English country house. Instead of providing the sense of security she needs, the location becomes the backdrop to an increasingly disturbing ordeal as PTSD, visions and fragments of memory begin to take hold.
Detective Isaac Phelps, played by Denton, is determined to establish Grace's identity and uncover what happened to her. As he becomes increasingly involved in her confusing world, however, the investigation begins to raise questions about which memories can be trusted.
Directed by Denton and Oakes, Remembrance looks set to play with the uncertain line between trauma, memory and reality, building its mystery around Grace's attempts to understand her own past. The film promises an increasingly unsettling journey towards a finale designed to change the way everything that came before is viewed.
Remembrance gets its UK digital release on 19 October 2026 from Reel2Reel Films.
Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson are an odd pairing on paper, but that is probably what makes Runner work as well as it does. Ritchson plays Hank Malone, a former Army Special Forces soldier who now earns a living transporting goods for clients. Wilson is Ben Bishop, the man who unexpectedly becomes attached to Hank's latest delivery.
What starts as a routine collection quickly becomes a fight for survival when Hank discovers the importance of what he is carrying. The pair are pursued by a Colombian cartel, forcing them through a succession of car chases, shootouts and increasingly desperate attempts to stay alive while getting the delivery to its destination.
The action is where the film earns most of its entertainment value. There is very little waiting around, with Hank constantly having to find another way out of trouble. A few of the set pieces stand out, particularly when he turns the cartel's own attempts to track them against them. The violence is also handled with enough impact to give the confrontations some weight.
Ritchson is well cast as Hank. He has the physical presence for the role, but the character is not simply presented as an indestructible killing machine. His history with his daughter Isabel, who died from leukaemia, explains some of his decisions and gives his attempts to learn French a personal reason.
Wilson gets the more amusing material, and the contrast between the two characters is easily one of the film's better features. Ben is inquisitive and talkative, while Hank is considerably less patient. Their arguments are often funny, and their relationship develops as their situation becomes more dangerous.
The emotional material works better than I expected. Hank's failed marriage to Monica and the loss of his daughter give the character something beyond the usual action-hero motivation. The film does not overplay it, which helps.
Unfortunately, the story is considerably less interesting than the two leads. Runner follows a very familiar buddy-action structure, and there are few genuine surprises. Once Hank and Ben become targets, the various obstacles and betrayals arrive pretty much as expected.
The film also sits awkwardly between action and comedy. There are laughs, mainly through Wilson, but the story is much more concerned with the chase and its consequences. I would have liked either a little more comedy or a slightly darker approach, rather than hovering somewhere between the two.
At around 90 minutes, there is at least no unnecessary padding. The film gets through its story quickly, gives its two leads plenty to do and finishes before the formula has time to become particularly tiresome.
There is nothing especially new here, but Ritchson and Wilson make the familiar material considerably more enjoyable than it deserves to be. The action delivers, the characters have enough personality to keep things interesting and the emotional elements give Hank a reason to care about more than simply surviving the day.
Runner will not stay with me for long, but I enjoyed watching it.
I score Runner a fair 7.5 out of 10.
In Cinemas Now, and not to be confused with the other film with Gal Gadot that I reviewed recently.
Hope is an ambitious and gloriously strange mixture of science fiction, horror, action and Korean comedy. Written and directed by Na Hong-jin, the film begins in the isolated village of Hope Harbor, where a series of mysterious deaths soon develops into a fight for survival against a seemingly unstoppable creature.
One of the film's biggest strengths is how patiently it handles the creature's introduction. We do not get a full look at it until around 45 minutes in, allowing the mystery to build before the film finally unleashes its monster. That gradual approach makes the first proper appearance much more effective and gives the story time to establish the isolated setting and the growing sense that something is seriously wrong.
Once the creature begins its rampage, Hope becomes an almost relentless action film. The chase sequences are particularly impressive, especially during the first hour. Watching vehicles tear through the streets while characters are both pursuing and fleeing the creature gives the film a real sense of scale. The low camera angles also work brilliantly, making the action feel larger and more intense.
Despite its excessive running time, there is rarely a shortage of things happening. Gunfights, pursuits, attacks and increasingly bizarre encounters keep the story moving, while the film's Korean humour provides some welcome relief from the violence. I particularly enjoyed this side of Hope. The comedy feels like a natural part of the film rather than something awkwardly inserted between the action.
The creature itself becomes more interesting as the story develops. What initially appears to be a simple monster turns out to be intelligent, seemingly indestructible and connected to something much larger. The eventual discovery that the creatures are aliens completely changes the scale of the story, while the revelation involving an infant adds an unexpected emotional element to what could otherwise have been a straightforward monster movie.
The cast also works well. Hwang Jung-min makes Bum-seok a likeable central character, while Jung Ho-yeon brings plenty of energy to rookie officer Sung-ae. Zo In-sung's headstrong Sung-ki adds another strong personality to the increasingly chaotic situation. The international cast, including Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Taylor Russell, further adds to the film's unusual combination of Korean character drama and large-scale science fiction.
Unfortunately, Hope does have a couple of significant weaknesses.
The biggest is the running time. At more than two and a half hours, the film is simply too long. There is plenty of action to keep things moving, but a tighter edit would have made the overall experience considerably stronger. Some material could have been trimmed without sacrificing the story or its major set pieces.
The CGI is also inconsistent. Much of the creature work is effective, but there are several shots where the effects are noticeably weaker. When the creature looks convincing, it is an imposing threat. When the CGI falters, however, it becomes much harder to stay immersed in the scene.
The ending is another reason I hope this is not the last we see of Hope. The cliffhanger leaves the story open for a sequel, and I would happily return for another film. With a larger budget, particularly for the visual effects, there is plenty of potential to build on what works here and deliver something even bigger.
If you love chase scenes, great action set pieces and weird-looking creatures, aliens and monsters, and you do not mind reading subtitles, then Hope is very much the film for you.
I love all of those things, and I really enjoyed Hope.
Hope gets a solid 8.5 out of 10. The dodgy CGI in places and the overly long running time are the main things preventing it from scoring even higher.
Hope is scheduled for release in UK cinemas on 25 September 2026
And is out NOW in US cinemas!
The Trailer does have some spoilers, so beware before you watch.
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