Film reviews: You've Been Trumped | Cowboys & Aliens | The Guard | Glee: The 3D Concert Movie | In A Better World

Our film critic takes a look at some of this week's new releases...

You've Been Trumped (TBC) ****

Directed by: Anthony Baxter

THIS is the sort of controlled, quietly angry and important film that will inspire plenty of ire in anyone frustrated by the way money and power frequently crushes anything in its path. Avoiding a Michael Moore-style polemic, director Anthony Baxter's clear-eyed documentary charts the failed attempts of local Aberdeenshire residents to block US tycoon Donald Trump's billion-dollar golf course by smartly focusing on the residents affected most directly, especially local farmer Michael Forbes, who refused to sell his land and was subsequently demonised for it. It's certainly despicable to see the way a billionaire such as Trump is repeatedly allowed to denigrate Forbes and his property – a working farm – just because it doesn't conform to his gaudy aesthetic tastes. But it's downright depressing to see higher-ups in Scotland parrot those sentiments on behalf of the wealthy tourists they imagine will visit. What the film does a good job of doing is undermining claims that the economic value will far outweigh the environmental cost, but it also exposes the galling double standards, petty power plays and short-sighted politics that have allowed Trump to build on protected land, while also raising questions about politicised policing, intimidation of locals and harassment of journalists. Absorbing stuff.

Cowboys & Aliens (12a) **

Directed by: Jon Favreau

Starring: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell

GIVEN the goofy literalness of its title, there's surprisingly little humour in Cowboys & Aliens. Perhaps the desire to avoid making another sci-fi/western flop on the scale of Wild Wild West was too great, or perhaps the challenge to make Daniel Craig crack a smile was too daunting, but director Jon Favreau brings none of the wit he brought to the first Iron Man film to bare on this latest comic book adaptation. Kicking off with surprisingly violent, Bond-style smackdown in which Craig's amnesiac cowboy fatally disarms a bunch of nefarious bounty-hunters, the film sets itself up as a straight-up action film, one in which Craig's Man Who Can't Remember His Name is roped into helping the residents of a struggling frontier town when gold-looting invaders come calling. That these invaders are actually space aliens should be a catalyst for lots of innovative blockbuster fun, but all the film does is fuse together western clichs and sci-fi clichs to create another dully generic special effects extravaganza. Harrison Ford provides some minor relief, with the merest flicker of the old Han Solo/Indiana Jones magic shining through his grouchy exterior, but it's not enough to make this work.

The Guard (15) **

Directed by: John Michael McDonagh

Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Mark Strong

FILLED with supposedly edgy humour, ironic bigotry and self-referential gags, The Guard presents itself as a subversive take on movie conventions but is really just a lazy recycling of cinematic clichs and recent trends. Part corrupt cop movie, part mismatched buddy flick, part crime caper, it stars Brendon Gleeson as Sergeant Gerry Boyle, a loveable reprobate whose insouciant attitude towards drugs, crime and police work in Connemara in the west of Ireland belie an instinctual talent for getting a dirty job done. Pitched as something of a parody of a dirty cop, he's at the centre of a shaggy dog story involving an international shipment of drugs, a plot conceit designed to partner Boyle up with an African-American FBI agent called Wendell Everett (played by Don Cheadle) purely so the film can score some easy laughs by having Boyle say the kinds of things political correctness has supposedly made unsayable. Alas, wrapping bigotry up in a blanket of irony has become an overused comedy trick and McDonagh isn't as skilled as his brother, In Bruges writer/director Martin McDonagh, at keeping this kind of thing fresh. Scene after scene of faux drama ends with glib punchlines designed to raise an outraged laugh, none of which are deserved.

Glee: The 3D Concert Movie (PG) ***

Directed by: Kevin Tancharoen

Starring: Heather Morris, Kevin McHale, Mark Salling

HAVING sat through countless Hilary Duff movies, two Miley Cyrus films, and a Jonas Brothers "Experience" (I didn't see the Justin Beiber one), Glee: The 3D Concert Movie, is a surprisingly absorbing and likeable addition to the multimedia-tween-phenomenon-on-tour subgenre. That's largely because it functions less as a self-serving promotional tool for its stars (about whom we learn next to nothing) and more as a sincere heart-on-the-sleeve celebration of what the characters they play mean to the fans who have made the US TV show such a hit. Thus, in between the cast warbling their way through pop and rock hits of yesteryear (and it is odd to see a new generation of pre-teen girls singing along to songs by Rick Springfield, Wings and Men At Work), we follow a handful of Glee fans for whom the TV show's perky, it's-okay-to-be-different message has proved genuinely inspirational. Of course, quick-to-judge detractors might argue that the superstar looks some of the cast possess might make their character's outsider status seem a little contrived (although dads might perk up at Brittney's show-stopper and Gywneth Paltrow's cameo). Yet for the most part, it's heartening to see performers who aren't all that removed from their screaming devotees.

In A Better World (15) ***

Directed by: Susanne Bier

Starring: Mikael Persbrandt, Trine Dyrholm, Markus Rygaard

WINNER of this year's Academy Award winner for best foreign language film, In a Better World may tick all the boxes that have come to distinguish the traditionally safe winners of this particular Oscar – it's earnest rather than edgy, conscientious rather than provocative – but it does score points by virtue of being a Susan Bier film. Like a lot of her work (Brothers, After the Wedding) it boasts credible performances that sell you on the believability of the characters even though they exist in a world that feels too schematic. In this case, the film contrasts the moral dilemmas a western doctor (played by Mikael Persbrandt) faces in both the unnamed African refugee camp where works to save the lives of the women and children brutalized by civil war, and the affluent Danish suburb where his estranged wife and eldest son are dealing with relentless bullying. If the two situations hardly seem comparable, Bier manages to show how her protagonist's pacifistic ideals become muddied as his son becomes embroiled in a campaign of teen vigilantism just as he's forced to start treating a local warlord responsible for much of the barbarity he sees everyday. It's engaging enough, but its conclusions are a little pat.