Emma FILM OF THE WEEK

THE RIOT CLUB (15, 107 mins)

Drama/Romance. Max Irons, Sam Claflin, Holliday Grainger, Freddie Fox, Douglas Booth, Matthew Beard, Sam Reid, Olly Alexander, Ben Schnetzer, Jack Farthing, Gordon Brown, Jessica Brown Findlay, Tom Hollander, Natalie Dormer. Director: Lone Scherfig. Released: September 19 (UK & Ireland)

The class war degenerates into foul-mouthed tirades and stomach-churning violence in Laura Wade's robust adaptation of her own coruscating stage play.

Posh originated at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2010 and was revived two years later in the West End, painting a vivid portrait of a fictional dining clique akin to the Bullingdon Club at Oxford University, which once included David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson in its notorious ranks.

Lone Scherfig's film, retitled The Riot Club, packs a similar emotional wallop to its stage-bound predecessor, detonating pent-up testosterone and tempers with horrifying repercussions.

Wade has fleshed out key protagonists and excised some scenes entirely to reduce the running time by 40 minutes.

There seems to be a greater emphasis on the fledgling romance between the most likable male character and a down-to-earth northern lass (Holliday Grainger), who is dazzled by the dreaming spires and gushes, "Being at Oxford is like being invited to 100 parties all at once - and I want to go to all of them."

The Riot Club is not a party most of us would wish to attend. But that's the point.

Alistair Ryle (Sam Claflin) arrives at Oxford, hoping to emulate his older brother, a former president of the titular fraternity.

This hush-hush 10-strong dining club honours the memory of its libidinous 18th century founder by boozing to excess at an annual dinner, trashing the venue and paying for the damages out of their trust funds.

Given his lineage, Alistair is almost certain to catch the eye of Riot Club president James Leighton-Masters (Freddie Fox).

However, it is dashing classmate Miles Richards (Max Irons) from more humble stock, who steals Alistair's thunder and arouses the homosexual yearnings of influential club member Hugo Fraser-Tyrwhitt (Sam Reid).

Alistair and Miles pass initiation and are inducted into the ranks alongside Harry Villiers (Douglas Booth), Guy Bellingfield (Matthew Beard), Toby Maitland (Olly Alexander), Dimitri Mitropoulos (Ben Schnetzer) and George Balfour (Jack Farthing).

The students head to a country pub run by Chris (Gordon Brown) and his daughter Rachel (Jessica Brown Findlay), who have no idea of the devastation about to be wrought.

The Riot Club is a sobering attack on a culture of inherited privilege and power in Britain.

Scherfig's film dissects how our egalitarian society is founded on secret handshakes in wood-panelled rooms far from the madding electorate, and you can almost see the venom streaking down the camera lens when one inebriated club member sneers, "I am sick to death of poor people!"

The Danish filmmaker, who previously helmed the Oscar nominated coming of age story An Education, doesn't spare the morally repugnant characters any blushes.

A climactic showdown is just as jaw-dropping in lurid cinematic close-up as it was from the safe distance of the theatre's upper circle.

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MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT (12A, 98 mins)

Comedy/Romance. Colin Firth, Emma Stone, Simon McBurney, Eileen Atkins, Marcia Gay Harden, Hamish Linklater, Jacki Weaver, Jeremy Shamos, Erica Leerhsen, Catherine McCormack. Director: Woody Allen. Released: September 19 (UK & Ireland)

There is a soupcon of magic and moonlight but considerably more insecurities and bluster in Woody Allen's playful yet lightweight romantic comedy set on the sun-kissed 1920s French Riviera.

The writer-director's frequent forays away from his beloved New York to European soil have been decidedly hit-and-miss affairs and Magic In The Moonlight disappoints more than it delights.

Allen affectionately evokes the era from the opening croon of the Cole Porter classic You Do Something To Me performed by Leo Reisman & His Orchestra, and the writer-director loads the soundtrack with upbeat jazzy tunes that telegraph the characters' emotions like You Call It Madness (But I Call It Love) by Smith Ballew and His Piping Rock Orchestra to underscore a blossoming central romance.

Regrettably, sparkling one-liners are in short supply on the Cote d'Azur and the on-screen chemistry between Colin Firth and Emma Stone is lukewarm, never threatening to set our pulse racing like her smouldering pairings with Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love or real-life beau Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man.

The film opens in 1928 Berlin, where magician Stanley Crawford (Firth) delights a sell-out audience in his guise as Chinese conjuror Wei Ling Soo.

Backstage, he berates his crew for their incompetence and lives up to the description of his best and perhaps only friend Howard Burkan (Simon McBurney) as "a genius with all the charm of a typhus epidemic".

Howard entreats Stanley to accompany him to the Riviera to debunk a psychic medium called Sophie Baker (Emma Stone), who has promised to help wealthy widow Grace Catledge (Jacki Weaver) make contact with her late husband.

In return, Grace has pledged to fund an expensive institute fronted by Sophie's mother (Marcia Gay Harden).

Swatting aside warnings about Sophie's beauty - "A pretty face never hurt a cheap swindler," retorts Stanley dryly - the magician bids fond farewell to his fiancee (Catherine McCormack) and heads for the Catledge villa posing as businessman Stanley Taplinger.

In no time at all, Stanley is almost as smitten with Sophie as Grace's lovesick son Brice (Hamish Linklater) and the celebrated magician struggles to find a rational explanation for her boggling feats of mind-reading and clairvoyance.

Magic In The Moonlight is a valentine to Allen's lifelong fascination with tricks and illusions, and he engineers one moment of misdirection to quickly untangle the knotty central plot.

An even bigger trick would be convincing us that Firth and Stone make a perfect match but it's doubtful Houdini could have pulled off that gross deception.

Supporting cast, who have a canny knack of scoring Oscar nominations in Allen's work, are subdued, even Eileen Atkins in the plum role of Firth's straight-talking aunt, who can sniff romance on her nephew like cheap cologne.

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A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES (15, 114 mins)

Released: September 19 (UK & Ireland)

Liam Neeson continues to embrace his role as a grizzled action hero in this taut crime thriller adapted from Lawrence Block's novel of the same name.

When a shootout with robbers ends in tragedy, booze-sodden NYPD cop Matthew Scudder (Neeson) hangs up his badge and gets sober with the help of AA then re-invents himself as a private investigator.

Fellow AA member Peter Kristo (Boyd Holbrook) approaches Matthew with a job: his brother Kenny (Dan Stevens) has just paid a ransom for the return of his kidnapped wife Carrie (Razane Jammal) but her abductors have not only taken the money but also cut her up into tiny pieces.

Matthew agrees to help Kenny apprehend the sadistic perpetrators, Ray (David Harbour) and Albert (Adam David Thompson), who are already scoping their next unsuspecting target.

In the course of his enquiries, Matthew meets wayward teenager TJ (Brian 'Astro' Bradley), who needs a father figure to offer him direction and keep him safe on the unforgiving streets of New York.

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THE GIVER (12A, 97 mins)

Released: September 19 (UK & Ireland)

Based on the 1993 novel of the same name by Lois Lowry, The Giver is a sci-fi thriller about a futuristic society which has erased harmful memories of the past as a means to secure a utopian future.

In the mid 21st-century, mankind has been devastated by war. The survivors decide to erase the citizens' memories, as well as their feelings, except for those of one trusted individual, The Giver, who passes on his or her memories to a Receiver when the time comes.

Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) has been chosen as the Receiver in his community and he begins to receive memories from The Giver (Jeff Bridges), who in turn received his memories from a young woman called Rosemary (Taylor Swift).

Slowly, Jonas deduces a tragic connection between The Giver and Rosemary and the young man shares this secret with his best friend Fiona (Odeya Rush).

He also shares feelings with Fiona and the teenagers kiss in secret without the knowledge of Jonas' parents (Alexander Skarsgard, Katie Holmes).

As he receives more memories, Jonas comes to the belief that every citizen should be blessed with recollections of the past and he embarks on a quest outside of the community's boundary to fulfil this seemingly impossible task.

When The Chief Elder (Meryl Streep) learns of Jonas' plan, she resolves to destroy the teenager and protect the status quo.

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THINK LIKE A MAN TOO (12A, 106 mins)

Released: September 19 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)

In this sequel to Tim Story's 2012 comedy Think Like A Man, which was based on a book by Steve Harvey, a group of male friends face various temptations when they fly to Las Vegas for a wedding.

Michael (Terrence J) and Candace (Regina Hall) prepare to tie the knot in the Nevada desert and they welcome their family and friends to the gambling capital for the nuptials.

Cedric (Kevin Hart) arrives without his wife Gail (Wendy Williams) in tow while Zeke (Romany Malco) and Mya (Meagan Good) must face painful reminders of his womanising past.

Jeremy (Jerry Ferrara) and Kristen (Gabrielle Union) continue to try to get pregnant, and Bennett (Gary Owen) and Tish (Wendy McLendon-Covey) search for a spark to rekindle their desire and prevent their marriage from stagnating.

The men and women spend a day apart with the bride and groom and secrets from the past re-surface, forcing some of the couples to make painful decisions about staying together or breaking up.

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WISH I WAS HERE (15, 107 mins)

Released: September 19 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)

For his second directorial feature after the critically adored 2004 comedy drama Garden State, Scrubs actor Zach Braff turned to the fundraising website Kickstarter to raise the two million dollars for this similarly intimate ensemble piece.

Wish I Was Here revolves around proud Jewish patriarch Gabe Bloom (Mandy Patinkin), who has seen his two sons Aidan (Braff) and Noah (Josh Gad) gravitate away from their faith and fall short of their potential.

Aidan is now a struggling actor, who clings onto his dreams of fame and fortune, while his long-suffering wife Sarah (Kate Hudson) pays the bills from her unedifying job with the Los Angeles Water Department.

Their children Grace (Joey King) and Tucker (Pierce Gagnon) attend a private school and Gabe has paid the tuition fees, hopeful that the next generation will appreciate the Jewish culture and its traditions.

When Gabe is diagnosed with cancer, Aidan realises he will have to home school Grace and Tucker because they cannot afford the school fees. As he embraces his new found responsibility as font of wisdom, the struggling actor learns afresh the joys of being a husband and parent.

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20,000 DAYS ON EARTH (15, 97 mins)

Released: September 19 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)

Directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard pay tribute to charismatic singer-songwriter Nick Cave with this film that melds documentary and fiction, imagining a highly stylised day in the life of Cave as he begins work on a new song that will develop, by the end of the 97 minutes, into a full-scale performance by Bad Seeds at Sydney Opera House.

En route, Cave drives through his adopted hometown of Brighton and discusses his childhood and influences with psychoanalyst Darian Leader.

Familiar faces from Cave's creative past including multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis, singer Kylie Minogue and actor Ray Winstone also share their fond memories of the iconic figure.

Amidst this mosaic of reminiscence and meditations, Forsyth and Pollard hope to discover what makes Cave tick and better understand his insatiable thirst for pushing musical boundaries and defying convention.

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GRAND PIANO (15, 90 mins)

Released: September 19 (UK, selected cinemas)

One bum musical note could be deadly in Eugenio Mira's English-language Spanish thriller, which engineers a high stakes battle between an emotionally brittle pianist and a diabolical tormentor.

Talented pianist Tom Selznick (Elijah Wood) suffers a mental breakdown on stage during a recital of an unplayable piece entitled La Cinquette.

He retreats from public life, rebuilding his confidence and self-belief with his beautiful wife Emma (Kerry Bishe).

Five years later, Tom reluctantly agrees to make his comeback at a performance in Chicago dedicated to his beloved mentor, Patrick Godureaux.

During the first movement, Tom turns over the page of the score and sees a message which reads, "Play one wrong note and you die".

He shrugs off the threat but over the next page there is a second threat, "Do you think I'm kidding? Look to your right..." Tom sees the laser dot of a sniper rifle flickering on his hand.

With fear rising, Tom must keep his nerves in check and continue with the recital or the gunman (John Cusack) will fulfil his sickening threat.

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KHOOBSURAT (PG, 127 mins)

Released: September 19 (UK, selected cinemas)

Shashanka Ghosh directs this Hindi language romantic comedy about a female doctor to a royal family, who falls in love with a man far above her station.

Dr Milli Chakravarty (Sonam Kapoor) is a quirky and hopelessly romantic physiotherapist, who has been encouraged to be spontaneous and open-minded by her mother Manju (Kirron Kher).

In the course of her work, Milli meets handsome Rajput prince Vikram Rathore (Fawad Khan), who is engaged to be married and has been raised to uphold discipline and self-restraint at all costs by his mother Nirmala (Ratna Pathak).

Opposites attract and Milli has a profound effect on Vikram, which jeopardises everything that Nirmala has instilled in her son.

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THE KIDNAPPING OF MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ (15, 96 mins)

Released: September 19 (UK, selected cinemas)

Famously reclusive novelist Michel Houllebecq pokes fun at himself in this offbeat comedy directed by Guillaume Nicloux, which mischievously blends fact and fiction.

In 2011, during the tour for his book The Map And The Territory, Houllebecq vanished without trace and his disappearance sent social media into overdrive.

Various theories spread like wildfire, from alien abduction to a terrorist plot masterminded by al-Qaeda.

In Nicloux's picture, three bumbling kidnappers - Ringleader Luc (Luc Schwarz) and hapless sidekicks Mathieu (Mathieu Nicourt) and Maxime (Maxime Lefrancois) - steal the writer away from his promotional tour and hide him in a remote location belonging to Luc's family.

In this rural idyll, Houllebecq savours his break from reality and forms an unlikely bond with his captors.

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NIGHT WILL FALL (15, 75 mins)

Released: September 19 (UK, selected cinemas)

In the mid 1980s, an American researcher stumbled upon a rusty film can marked F3080 in the vaults of the Imperial War Museum in London.

Inside was an incomplete film, made in the spring of 1945 and commissioned by Sidney Bernstein, chief of the Psychological Warfare Film Section of SHAEF, which documented the atrocities witnessed by Allied forces as they entered the German concentration camps.

At the time, the British Government decided not to air the film, fearful that it would stall efforts to rebuild bridges across Europe with Germany.

Dr Toby Haggith from the Museum has spent three years restoring the film, frame by frame, and recreated the missing final reel from the original shot lists. This feature-length documentary directed by Andre Singer recounts the incredible story of the making of the 1945 film, the people involved in its production - including Alfred Hitchcock and renowned editor Stewart McAllister - and the decision to never show the finished print.

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BARBECUE (15, 96 mins)

Released: September 19 (London Cine Lumiere)

A health-conscious industry high-flyer suffers a heart attack and decides to turn his life on its head in Eric Lavaine's comedy of bad manners.

Antoine (Lambert Wilson) works at his father's company and takes care of his body and mind, sating his sexual desire with various mistresses while his wife Vero (Sophie Duez) works punishing hours as a doctor.

During a 10km run, Antoine suffers a heart attack and this brush with death has a profound effect on the husband: he starts gorging on calorific and fatty foods, stops taking care of his appearance and decides to dole out a few home truths to his friends at one of their regular barbecue get-togethers.

Thus, Yves (Guillaume de Tonquedec) and Laure (Lysiane Meis), Laurent (Lionel Abelanski) and Nathalie (Valerie Crouzet), and Baptiste (Franck Dubosc) and Olivia (Florence Foresti) unexpectedly find themselves in the firing line along with the couples' mutual friend Jean-Michel (Jerome Commandeur).

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SALOME AND WILD SALOME (15, 240 mins)

Released: September 21 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)

A double-bill of Al Pacino's adaptation of Oscar Wilde's controversial drama starring the Oscar-winning actor and Jessica Chastain in her first ever film role, and Pacino's 2011 documentary, which goes behind the scenes of the making of the film and offers a fresh perspective on the life of Wilde. The screenings are followed by a live satellite broadcast from BFI Southbank in London of a Q&A with Pacino and Chastain, hosted by Stephen Fry.

UK FILM TOP 10

1. The Boxtrolls

2. Lucy

3.  Sex Tape

4. Pride

5. A Most Wanted Man

6.  Before I Go To Sleep

7.  Guardians Of The Galaxy

8. Let's Be Cops

9. The Hundred-Foot Journey

10. The Inbetweeners 2

Chart courtesy of Cineworld.co.uk