Critical Week: Against the law

The big movie screened this week for London critics was Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit, a powerfully riveting drama that, like last week's Dunkirk, unapologetically immerses the audience in a historical event. Plus noteworthy performances from British actors John Boyega (above) and Will Poulter. Lighter fare included the raucous comedy Girls Trip, which is very funny and has a surprisingly soft centre, and the Jack the Ripper style horror whodunit The Limehouse Golem, which is overfamiliar but very well-played.

Slightly outside the mainstream, we had the conceptual underwater horror of 47 Metres Down, which nerve-wrackingly traps two young women at the bottom of the sea surrounded by sharks; Gerard Butler trying to emote in the rather painfully obvious work-life balance drama A Family Man; Michael Winterbottom struggling to find a balance between documentary and fiction in the band tour movie On the Road (Wolf Alice fans should love it); and a sensitive doc tracing a likeable young musician's gender transition in Real Boy.

Coming up this week are the animated comedy The Emoji Movie, Tom Holland in Pilgrimage, Toni Collette in Fun Mom Dinner, Francois Ozon's L'Amant Double, Sundance hit Beach Rats, Berlin winner On Body and Soul, the dark comedy Kept Boy, and the tense drama Insyriated.