Legend of Barney Thomson, The (2015)
Starring Robert Carlyle, Emma Thompson, Ray Winstone, James Cosmo
Directed by Robert Carlyle
The Ballad of Sweeney Todd moves from London to Glasgow in an adaptation of the first of a series of novels that you’ve never heard of.
With his sharply defined features making him look underfed and suspicious, Robert Carlyle is Barney Thompson, a small time barber stuck in a life that goes nowhere, whilst dreaming of being a hero of legendary status, hence the title. Things do begin to go places for Barney, however, when he accidentally murders his boss, which leads to more and more killings and conundrums about body disposal. Legend indeed.
Carlyle has a reputation for playing characters who are slight social outcasts, something he excels at here in his directional debut, and what also might become his signature role. Barney is that weird guy who creeps you out but you just can’t quite figure out why. But there’s just something about him that’s not right.
Oddly enough, we find ourselves rooting for Barney because we all have a soft spot for the loner who just wants to fit in. Hell, we’ve all seen how society treats people who are different, so when he does lash out, you can’t help but cheer for him. And no matter how terrible his crimes, who can possibly not feel sorry for someone who goes through the trouble of bringing a dead body to a lake to dispose of it, only to discover that he can’t because there’s no boat.
And no wonder Barney’s the way he is, what with having been raised by a crazy mother and everything. Rather than playing her usual posh nanny style character, Emma Thompson here plays a foul-mouthed, heckling, fish and chip munching psycho named Cemolina (yeah) who makes Norma Bates seem like a halfway decent parent. Casting against type can be a delight when we see a performer playing a character who is so unashamedly the polar opposite of what we are accustomed to that she becomes, without a doubt, the highlight of the film. So batshit crazy that you don’t know whether to find her fascinating or downright terrifying.
Another key strength of the film is that it knows what it wants to be and it never lets up. Never descending too far into parody or serious killer detective melodrama, it treads a fine line in between, clearly not wanting to conform to being one or the other. And while we do see all the gruesome imagery and brutality of a slasher, we also have Ray Winstone as a foul-mouthed and not particularly bright cop investigating the case to lighten the mood.
Having said that, though, a subplot involving police incompetence, which seems to be trying to emulate some kind of social political message about how the legal system needs to be redesigned or something, seems to be tacked on to give an air of importance that was not necessary and distracts from what you’re really interested in. This is, first and foremost, a film about Barney and his lunatic mother.
The Legend of Barney Thompson is a worthy directional debut from Carlyle as he takes his own Scottish upbringing and adds an insane twist to it. And man do those severed limbs look real.
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Film
Categorized:Reviews
