Miss Sloane | Review - Jessica Chastain has the gun lobby in her sights

(Image credit: Kerry Hayes)

Make sure you surprise them.

Jessica Chastain is on mesmerising form as a devious Washington DC lobbyist who takes on America’s gun lobby in the glossy but gripping political thriller Miss Sloane.

So cunning she makes Machiavelli look like a Boy Scout, Chastain’s Elizabeth Sloane prides herself on being several steps ahead of her opponents, but she appears to have overreached herself when she tries to get a gun-control bill passed into legislation.

Even so, she definitely has us, the viewers, on our toes as much as her bewildered allies (including Mark Strong and Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and irate foes (Michael Stuhlbarg, Sam Waterston and John Lithgow).

Piling on the feints and manoeuvres, first-time screenwriter Jonathan Perera does rather overegg the plot, but director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) keeps things taut and intriguing to the end.

Certificate 15. Runtime 132 mins. Director John Madden

Miss Sloane available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from Entertainment One.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v85YqSFzqSI

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A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.