Chuckle Brothers’ moving story is worthy of big screen
If Mindhorn (15A) ★★★ was conceived late one night in a film festival bar, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. How else do you explain a film about an Eighties TV detective fitted with a truth-detecting bionic eye, cast members from The Mighty Boosh and a list of producers that include Ridley Scott, Steve Coogan and Christine Langan of BBC Films? Must have been a good night.
Thankfully, it’s a pretty good, if fabulously silly, film too – as vain, deluded, washed-up old actor Richard Thorncroft (played by Boosh alumnus Julian Barratt), still best known for playing the Isle of Man-based Mindhorn 30 years ago, discovers that his only chance of employment is to help the local police catch a serial killer.
It’s very funny, features surprising cameos from Kenneth Branagh and Simon Callow, and has a running gag about John Nettles, who, of course, played that other island detective, Bergerac. But while Barratt is splendid in the central role, we have seen this sort of satire many times before, not least in Coogan’s own Alan Partridge.
One of the great mysteries of recent Irish history is how those former sworn enemies, Martin McGuinness and the Rev Ian Paisley, somehow came together to forge a working relationship and a friendship apparently so warm they were nicknamed The Chuckle Brothers.
In The Journey (12A) ★★★★ director Nick Hamm and writer Colin Bateman imagine how this unlikely reconciliation might have taken place, as ‘circumstances’ improbably force Paisley (Timothy Spall) and McGuinness (Colm Meaney) to share a car to Edinburgh Airport. Spall doesn’t have the physical size to totally convince as Paisley but Meaney is terrific as McGuinness, and while the end result is both wordy and not always believable, I found it fascinating and deeply moving.
A Dog’s Purpose (PG) ★★★ begins with the premise that dogs don’t die but are actually reincarnated over and over again. So when that sweet stray puppy is caught by the dog-catcher, don’t worry, he’ll be back shortly as a red retriever. The result is an inevitably episodic and repetitive film that for all its laboured canine capers never comes close to charming.
You’ll have to be a big Jamie Foxx fan to get much out of Sleepless (15A) ★★ in which he plays a corrupt Las Vegas cop who comes under suspicion from Jan Bryant (Michelle Monaghan) of Internal Affairs. And then his son is kidnapped…
It’s macho, tediously violent and seemingly shot almost entirely within the confines of one of the resort’s casino-hotels. I certainly won’t be making a reservation.