Fun, but forgettable
Review All at Sea (M, 88 mins) Directed by Robert Young Reviewed by James Croot ★★★
Offering more of Brian Cox than you’ll ever need to see, this Norwegian-set black comedy will delight fans of oldies behaving badly tales like Waking Ned Devine.
However, the septuagenarian Scottish actor in his all together isn’t even the most shocking part of director Robert Young’s (Fierce Creatures, TV’s Jeeves and Wooster) movie. That honour has to go to the sight of Lauren Bacall, some fiveand-a-half years after her death.
It’s only when you discover that this debuted at the Norwegian Film Festival in 2010 (and was filmed in 2007) that you don’t stop questioning your sanity.
Adapted by UK playwright Hugh Janes from his mid-1990s play Wide Blue Yonder (originally written as a starring vehicle for the late Eric Sykes), All at Sea is the tale of Cox’s Wally, whose longterm best-mate Skipper has just died as he lived – at the pub.
Having fought and sailed together and had his life saved by him, Wally believes the least he owes him is his death.
His plan is to give his old mucker a burial at sea. The harbourmaster, Skip’s relatives, and officials from his retirement home, have other ideas, though.
However, Wally won’t be deterred, even it means using all his unsavoury contacts and smuggling skills.
Filled with pithy one-liners (‘‘death is just nature’s way of telling you to sod off’’) and plenty slapstick, Sea is a fun, if forgettable romp made more than bearable by a brilliantly unhinged performance from Cox (Churchill, Rise of the Planet of the Apes).
While the comedy wavers between Fawlty Towers-esque hijinks and Neil Simon-like antinostalgia (‘‘live by the minute, not the memories,’’ Wally espouses) and character clashes (Cox’s Wally not only has to contend with the establishment, but also his straitlaced new room-mate, James Fox’s George), Cox cuts through the accumulating schmaltz with his delightfully acerbic tour de farce.