The Legend of Barney Thompson (15.)
Directed by Robert Carlyle.
Starring Robert Carlyle, Emma Thompson, Ray Winstone, Ashley Jenson, James Cosmo and Tom Courtenay. 90 mins.
Robert Carlyle's first stab at directing gets its shocks in early – the opening 10 minutes contain a severed knob, sent in the post to the family of the victim of a serial killer and Emma Thompson as a foul mouthed, chip eating, bingo enthusiast, Glaswegian granny, who emerges from the toilet announcing, “I'd give it a couple of minutes.”
The title character, played by Carlyle, is a dull, insipid hairdresser who makes an inadvertent lateral career move into serial killing through a bit of manslaughter. Our demon barber is a quiet soul, who is being eased out of his gentlemen's hairdresser's, due to his lack of patter. Then a series of unfortunate events draws him into the police hunt for the serial killer and the attentions of Ray Winstone's frustrated detective.
These kinds of gallows farce – Oops here's the police, quick the hide the corpse under the bed - are a tricky balancing act. A lot of contrivance and coincidence is used to get the laughs and whether the laughs generated are enough to justify the effort put in to get them is debatable. I think the room I saw it in was kind of split on this issue.
Though Carlyle is probably a little too charismatic to convince as a dullard, the cast is its main asset. Casting Emma Thompson so violently against type may smack of thespian gimmickry but once you get over the shock she is very convincing. Maybe my sassenach ears are off but if you didn't know, you'd never guess. We're so conditioned to seeing actors as celebrities it can be a bit of a shock when they actually show they can convincingly pretend to be someone not themselves. Maybe after this she could team up with Rupert Everett for a new version of Rab. C Nesbitt.
Directed by Robert Carlyle.
Starring Robert Carlyle, Emma Thompson, Ray Winstone, Ashley Jenson, James Cosmo and Tom Courtenay. 90 mins.
Robert Carlyle's first stab at directing gets its shocks in early – the opening 10 minutes contain a severed knob, sent in the post to the family of the victim of a serial killer and Emma Thompson as a foul mouthed, chip eating, bingo enthusiast, Glaswegian granny, who emerges from the toilet announcing, “I'd give it a couple of minutes.”
The title character, played by Carlyle, is a dull, insipid hairdresser who makes an inadvertent lateral career move into serial killing through a bit of manslaughter. Our demon barber is a quiet soul, who is being eased out of his gentlemen's hairdresser's, due to his lack of patter. Then a series of unfortunate events draws him into the police hunt for the serial killer and the attentions of Ray Winstone's frustrated detective.
These kinds of gallows farce – Oops here's the police, quick the hide the corpse under the bed - are a tricky balancing act. A lot of contrivance and coincidence is used to get the laughs and whether the laughs generated are enough to justify the effort put in to get them is debatable. I think the room I saw it in was kind of split on this issue.
Though Carlyle is probably a little too charismatic to convince as a dullard, the cast is its main asset. Casting Emma Thompson so violently against type may smack of thespian gimmickry but once you get over the shock she is very convincing. Maybe my sassenach ears are off but if you didn't know, you'd never guess. We're so conditioned to seeing actors as celebrities it can be a bit of a shock when they actually show they can convincingly pretend to be someone not themselves. Maybe after this she could team up with Rupert Everett for a new version of Rab. C Nesbitt.
