Film Reviews by RT

Eventually got around to watching this, after it came to the cinemas to good reviews.

Well, for me it was just a hollywood movie about hollywood. Meh. Do the movie makers really think that the inside workings of hollywood (daft as they might be) are really of interest to the rest of us? OK, it's meant to be a satire, but it's really not very satirical. Some actors are thick! Some can't act! Hiarious! No, not really.

Yes, there were some good performances in this, but it was really a waste of time. I found myself having lost interest after the first half hour or so. Stuck it to the end, but all that did for me was to convince me that the Coens had forgotten the first rule of comedy: it has to be funny. This wasn't.

Two stars only because the quality of some of the actors dragged it up from 1.

This is terrible. I mean, I'm a fan of "good" bad movies, but this is a "bad" bad movie. It has absolutely nothing to recommend it. It fails the first rule of comedies, which is "It must be funny". This isn't even unintentionally funny. The entire cast must be spending their time denying they were ever in it. I stromgly suspect the directors and writers were consuming far too many illegal substances during the whole affair.

Pros: the plot actually isn't a bad concept. The cast includes good people who do their best but the whole thing is completely inadequate to their talents.

Cons: It's crap. The characters are unconvincing. The writing is terrible. As "comedies" go, you'd laugh more at somebody strangling kittens. The whole thing feels like it's been conceived as an effort for the directors to go back to their drug-addled 1960's memories.

Conclusion: avoid at all costs.

We gave the first three episodes a try, but they failed to inspire, so we've not pursued the rest.

It's a real shame - the cast is fantastic, and the concept is good. There are a lot of good actors in here, doing a brilliant job with what they're given. However, the writers try very hard to throw in every possible victorian novel/legend/etc, and it ends up just a bit overdone, and it takes itself far, far too seriously. Had it had some flashes of (intentional) humour, it could have been a different experience. Even the lashings of "shocking" gore, language, sex and nudity just gave it all a faint air of deperation.

There are a couple of potentially interesting plotlines starting to develop by the end of episode 3, but we really couldn't be bothered...

Being old enough to remember Edward Woodward, I was a little prepared to dislike this film. However, Denzel Washington is brilliant in the role. I thought he brought quite a reluctance and sadness into what he was doing, which really distinguished this film from the current crop of geriatric-revenge pap (eg the Taken series and the various copycats - we all hoped that genre had ended when poor old Charles Bronson turned up his toes). So, see it for Denzel's performance alone, if not for anything else.