At The Movies: Sex comedy Good Luck To You, Leo Grande; Hyun Bin actioner The Point Men

Good Luck To You, Leo Grande (R21)

97 minutes, opens on Thursday

4 stars

The story: A retired religious studies teacher, two years widowed, hires a male escort to provide the sexual gratification she has never had in this 2022 Sundance Film Festival hit.

Emma Thompson plays 55-year-old Nancy Stokes in the British comedy Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, and if Thompson can be lonely and unfulfilled, what hope is there for the rest of us mature women?

Irish actor Daryl McCormack is a gleaming stud as the titular gigolo who arrives at Nancy’s rented hotel room and gets handed a list of five coital positions she wants to complete, as if it were one of her class assignments.

Nancy is eager. “There are nuns out there with more sexual experience than me,” she laments.

But she is terrified. She is a knot of middle-class prudishness and middle-aged insecurity, babbling on about her disappointment in her sagging breasts, her children and her life.

Thompson is at her funniest, as much because of her expert delivery as it is for how painfully honest Nancy is.

Every bit her equal is McCormack from the BBC series Peaky Blinders (2019 to 2022), whose Leo Grande is smart, sensitive and at ease in his sexiness as he patiently calms his client. Will Nancy ever stop talking so they can have sex?

Tension arises when Nancy tries nosing into the real person behind this fantasy lover. Director Sophie Hyde’s intimate one-room two-person act spans four sessions over which the pair of strangers get to know each other – and themselves. It is a liberating story on the need for human connection and self-acceptance.

Hot take: The two leads are terrific in a witty sex-positive bedroom farce that seduces and satisfies. – Whang Yee Ling

The Point Men (NC16)

110 minutes, opens on Thursday

3 stars

The story: This thriller is inspired by the real events of 2007, when a group of South Korean visitors in Afghanistan were taken hostage by the Taliban. Diplomat Jeong Jae-ho (Hwang Jung-min) is sent to Kabul to negotiate, but finds himself out of his depth. He calls on Park Dae-sik (Hyun Bin), a special agent who has embedded himself with the locals. While the clock ticks, the duo try every trick to free the prisoners.

The Point Men gets the big question out of the way first: What were 23 South Korean men and women doing in an Afghan province still racked by fighting? Jeong slaps his forehead in disbelief when he finds out why, as will viewers.

But even if the hostages seem to be less than ideal victims, duty comes first for the civil servant. He sets off, overcoming barriers of language, culture and a suicide bomber or two.

This story could have been much better served as a political thriller infused with black comedy if it had stayed with the dogged Jeong, the sweaty straight arrow thrust into an underworld filled with sweet-talking scammers eager to get hold of the millions in ransom they think he holds.

Enter Korean star Hyun Bin as the superspy who is part Jason Bourne, part Lawrence Of Arabia (a rugged man needs a rugged landscape, you see) and all action man. Once the first close-up of his sun-bronzed cheekbones happens, there is the sinking feeling that the film will get Tom Cruise’d. That is, become a vehicle for much charismatic running, squinting and trick motorcycle riding.

That certainly happens, but if viewers can get past the shoehorned-in action bits and twitchy plot twists – as well as its cliched depiction of Islamic radicals, which in 2023 feels wrong – there is at least enough visual candy here to sustain interest.

Hot take: A real hostage crisis has become fodder for an action movie. The consolation is the production has the budget to make it look good. – John Lui