KCUR's Steve Walker shares his top movie picks of the week.By Steve Walker
Kansas City, MO – Helen Mirren is a joy to watch as she gets asserts herself into the middle of a lethal skirmish between two gangs in 1960's Brighton,England in writer/director Rowan Joffe's adaptation of the Graham Greene novel. The central thug is deceptively named "Pinky" (Sam Riley) and has no qualms about how he permanently quiets first a rival and then a potential witness, Rose (Andrea Riseborough), a na?ve waitress who is smitten with him despite the dire warnings of his character from her boss (Mirren). John Hurt and Andy Serkis both show up in small roles but the nifty thriller's central triangle of Riley, Riseborough and Mirren keep the movie scary and buoyant. Joffe pays homage to the 1947 noirish original "Brighton Rock" (playing Tuesday, October 18th as part of the Tivoli's British Noir series) in the way he flickers and splinters both natural and artificial light. And his camera captures a few stunning images, the highlight being a copper-headed Mirren in a blood-red coat running atop the chalky white cliffs of the British coast.