Being Scottish, and being from Glasgow, I had to see this movie.
It has the feel of a 'modern sweeney todd', in this case a bumbling and hapless accidental sweeney todd, who somehow spontaneously kills people, often just by touching them. The strange accidents that result in the deaths of his co-workers are definitely some of the least believable murders I have ever seen.
All of this accomplished by Hollywood's 'New Favorite Scottish Actor', - Robert Carlyle, Bobby, who appears to be the go-to guy for a Scottish character lately (Ewan Mcgregor sighs and thanks him)
Saving the day is Emma Thompson, as usual. I would rate this role by Emma as Oscar worthy and one of her best. She absolutely NAILS the old Glasgow biddy as Bobby's ma, with a wee bit o spark left in-er, and the laughs are frequent every time she is on screen and pulling off a flawless guttural lower-class Glaswegian accent.
The movie begins as a dark comedy, with bumbling inspectors in not so hot pursuit of a serial killer in Glasgow that is chopping up it's victims and mailing them to loved ones. As our hapless and clutsy barber, who just seems to get people killed by accident but is not the serial killer, slowly clues in to the horror that the real killer may be his own mother, the truth about how little his mother loves him and his dubious parentage take the movie down a real depressingly dark side road we really didn't need. At this point we just want to vomit along with Bobby, and the ending has little uplift to our depressed hearts.
This movie could have been so much more, the Scottish version of 'Hot Fuzz' for example. But instead of going for the laughs, like a true Glasgow bully, it smashed the beer bottle and came at us to give us a 'Glasgow Grin'. Gutted after watching this. Gutted.
It has the feel of a 'modern sweeney todd', in this case a bumbling and hapless accidental sweeney todd, who somehow spontaneously kills people, often just by touching them. The strange accidents that result in the deaths of his co-workers are definitely some of the least believable murders I have ever seen.
All of this accomplished by Hollywood's 'New Favorite Scottish Actor', - Robert Carlyle, Bobby, who appears to be the go-to guy for a Scottish character lately (Ewan Mcgregor sighs and thanks him)
Saving the day is Emma Thompson, as usual. I would rate this role by Emma as Oscar worthy and one of her best. She absolutely NAILS the old Glasgow biddy as Bobby's ma, with a wee bit o spark left in-er, and the laughs are frequent every time she is on screen and pulling off a flawless guttural lower-class Glaswegian accent.
The movie begins as a dark comedy, with bumbling inspectors in not so hot pursuit of a serial killer in Glasgow that is chopping up it's victims and mailing them to loved ones. As our hapless and clutsy barber, who just seems to get people killed by accident but is not the serial killer, slowly clues in to the horror that the real killer may be his own mother, the truth about how little his mother loves him and his dubious parentage take the movie down a real depressingly dark side road we really didn't need. At this point we just want to vomit along with Bobby, and the ending has little uplift to our depressed hearts.
This movie could have been so much more, the Scottish version of 'Hot Fuzz' for example. But instead of going for the laughs, like a true Glasgow bully, it smashed the beer bottle and came at us to give us a 'Glasgow Grin'. Gutted after watching this. Gutted.