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Reviews
A Touch of Cloth (2012)
Best spoof since The Naked Gun?
Procedural police shows finally get the parody they have been long asking for in this occasionally hilarious and frequently amusing offering from Charlie Brooker. Cloth, the eponymous protagonist, portrayed with a knowing degree of over-acting by the fabulous John Hannah, is that favourite genre trope: a damaged, veteran officer, called in to resolve the 100th annual murder on the unfortunately named Rundowne Estate.
Wordplay and smart exchanges between the chief characters abounds as Cloth and his "Modern Lesbian" DC, Anne Oldman (say it out loud), pun their way through a series of grisly murder scenes. Ably assisting the satire are a slew of other familiar faces portraying similarly cookie-out characters, most memorably Julian Rhind-Tutt as the authoritarian, disapproving Boss.
Where A Touch of Cloth distinguishes itself from other, less effective parodies is that no aspect of the gritty Crime drama TV is safe from its mocking barbs. Direction, sound-editing and pacing are subtly (and, on occasion, not so subtly) exposed to criticism. Cameras follow characters as they do pointless circuits around rooms, mulling over exposition, scenes of violence are repeatedly and unnecessarily revisited with the same sound effects repeating themselves over and over again.
However, in one respect A Touch of Cloth does let itself and its otherwise highly intelligent script down, and that is the sexual humour. While not averse to the odd sex-related gag, and fully aware that this is the 21st Century, these felt out of place and really did not add anything to what is otherwise the finest spoof of procedural police dramas since The Naked Gun.
Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
Great film - but slightly rushed beginning
First I'd just like to outline how much I enjoyed this film. The cast were by and large excellent, say what you will about the monotonous tone of Orlando Bloom. The special effects are superb, on a par with any other epic produced in recent years and Scott handles the direction of the battle scenes well.
Yet, I was fairly frustrated by the opening half an hour of the film, where the script appears to be in a desperate rush to get Balian to Jerusalem to avoid a 4 hour plus epic. His father is barely introduced before Bloom's character decides to murder a priest and follow him to the holy land seeking redemption, and is then delivered a mortal wound in the next scene. This hurried start makes it difficult to feel involved by the story later on, particularly with the death of Hospitaler, which had little emotional impact.
But all that said, the second half of the film makes up for it, with a fast-moving story with impressive scope, that remarkably steers clear of controversy despite the sensitivity of the issues it deals with.