THE DUKE (12A)

Punishment doesn't fit the crime in a crowd-pleasing comedy drama directed by the late Roger Michell, based on the outlandish true story of a daring art theft that made national headlines in March 1961.

Nimbly scripted by Richard Bean and Clive Colman, The Duke is comfortingly old-fashioned and cosy fare, gifting Jim Broadbent a plum role as a twinkly-eyed, self-educated campaigner for social justice who would rather spend two weeks behind bars than pay for a TV licence that he believes should be free for OAPs.

The Oscar-winning actor pickpockets a convincing Newcastle accent - more so than some co-stars - and plies bountiful charm as an irascible everyman, who stands up for what he believes in, regardless of the potential embarrassment to his despairing wife, played by Dame Helen Mirren.

They catalyse delightful screen chemistry, bickering about his reckless disregard for social niceties before he melts her frustration into laughter with an impromptu waltz around the front room.

Supporting characters are short-changed by Bean and Colman's broad brushstrokes and the script's portrait of life beneath the smoking chimney stacks of 1961 Newcastle-upon-Tyne is entirely predictable.

However, it's hard to resist a good-humoured tonic for the soul that slips down as smoothly as a bottle of brown ale.

Sixty-year-old aspiring BBC scriptwriter Kempton Bunton (Broadbent) lives with his long-suffering housekeeper wife Dorothy (Mirren).

Recently released from prison for refusing to pay for a TV licence, Kempton struggles to hold down a job at a local bakery, while Dorothy diligently tends to the needs of her sympathetic employer, Mrs Gowling (Anna Maxwell Martin).

Watching the TV that secured him a 13-day spell behind bars, Kempton is enraged by a news report about the National Gallery in London using £140,000 of taxpayers' money to keep Francisco Goya's portrait of Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, in the country.

He fervently believes the money should have been spent on war widows and pensioners rather than a "half-baked portrait by some Spanish drunk".

Soon after, Kempton travels to London with his latest submission for the BBC.

That night, the portrait vanishes from the National Gallery and police boldly proclaim the heist to be the work of "a highly professional, criminal gang".

Little do they know that the prized canvas is concealed in a wardrobe in Kempton's terraced home.

The Duke stands accused of crimes against originality but Michell's feelgood picture confidently sets out the case for leniency to the same roars of approval from the gallery that greet Kempton's straight-talking defence of his actions.

The script becomes overly sentimental for its closing argument but our sympathy and affection are wholeheartedly with Broadbent's working-class warrior by this point.

7.5/10

CYRANO (12A)

Love is a battlefield and the grievously injured sport wounds to the breastplate in Joe Wright's lushly orchestrated film version of the off-Broadway stage musical adapted by Erica Schmidt from Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmond Rostand.

Peter Dinklage movingly reprises the title role of a painfully proud soldier, who is doomed to love a childhood friend from a distance, expressed beautifully through the music of Aaron Dessner and Bryce Dessner and the lyrics of Matt Berninger and Carin Besser.

"I am a monster! I am a mutant! A freak of nature - I've heard all the ugly hateful nomenclature," snarls Cyrano in When I Was Born, which chronicles the cruel reaction of nurses and his mother to his birth.

This opening refrain breaks our hearts as Cyrano despairs "I'm living proof that God has a sick sense of humour", and succinctly establishes the deep-rooted self-loathing that compels a master swordsman and waspish wit to cower in the shadows when it comes to matters of the heart.

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's expressive choreography elevates some of the songbook's more forgettable numbers but the haunting lament Wherever I Fall, sung by three guards on the eve of battle, is breathtaking, building to a tear-stained crescendo that adds us to the casualty list.

Soldier and poet Cyrano de Bergerac (Dinklage) pines for Roxanne (Haley Bennett) but cannot disclose his true feelings by virtue of his lowly social status and physical demeanour.

"My fate is to love her from afar," he tells trusted confidant Le Bret (Bashir Salahuddin).

Instead, Cyrano watches as the object of his affection entertains advances from odious nobleman De Guiche (Ben Mendelsohn), who offers security in a world where fortune favours the wealthy.

The soldier barely contains his jealousy when Roxanne gives her heart to a dashing young recruit, Christian de Neuvillette (Kelvin Harrison Jr), under his command.

"Would you love him if he wasn't handsome?" asks Cyrano.

"I can't imagine it," dreamily replies Roxanne.

Crushed by those words, Cyrano strikes a bargain with Christian to secretly write lyrical love letters so the young suitor may woo Roxanne.

"I'll make you eloquent while you make me handsome," Cyrano explains to Christian, who is blissfully unaware of his companion's unspoken true feelings.

The billets-doux cast a spell and Roxanne and Christian gravitate towards each other.

Galvanised by Dinklage's compelling performance, Cyrano swoons handsomely to the theme of unrequited love.

Directorial flourishes distance the material from its stage origins, although Mendelssohn's villainous aristocrat is pure pantomime.

Bennett and Harrison Jr add emotional depth to the central love triangle, particularly in an anguished final act when the repercussions of the letter-writing inspire the desperate reprise "Have you ever wanted something so badly you cannot breathe?"

Wright's picture takes our breath away only intermittently.

7/10