108.
Mindhorn
6.5/10
This was a screen unseen for me, which if you don't know, you can book to see a film in an Odeon cinema and you don't know what it is except for three clues leading up to the movie time and then its revealed when it starts rolling. After having a sneak at what people were guessing, I settled on Mindhorn, a British comedy that I can only imagine would interest the UK, with not many others actually getting our humour. Not knowing what to expect, I was ready for the show.
Richard Thorncroft, played by Julian Barratt, is a 1980's TV detective called Mindhorn, working on the Isle of Man, this charismatic man had a robotic eye that can see the truth. With help of a stuntman, love interest and side kick in the show, it's reasonably popular until he goes onto a chat show, wants to leave for the US and insults his fellow cast and the Isle itself.
Fast forward 25 years and Richard is washed up, balding, over weight and living in a tiny flat in London. His career is now advertising embarrassing products on TV rather than staring in shows whilst his agent is trying to find him work. The humour is very dry and he thinks a lot of himself when we sneaks into auditions that he hasn't been invited too, or meetings within his agents office. He's not jealous of that fact that his old side character from Mindhorn now has a spin off show which is a lot more successful than his own show ever was, and now the guy, played by Steve Coogan, is a multi millionaire. Back on the Isle, a murder case happens and a guy who is the lead suspect will only talk to Mindhorn, believing that he is real after growing up watching the show as a child. In order to take any offer on the table to become famous again, Richard is willing to help out and off he goes. Loving the publicity, he puts his eye patch back on, squeezes into his old outfit and quickly slips back into his old character which pisses the police constable right off and everyone else doesn't know how to react. Whilst at the station, the main suspect Melly calls and they set up a meeting where he gets arrested. With success and the hope of further paths, he wants to get the old gang back together and searches for his on screen love interest and ex girlfriend who now works for a news network. This fails as he find outs the hard way that she is now living with his former stunt man and she has a daughter but it's not known to them who the father is. Reading between the lines and with his egotistic mentality, he thinks that she is his. Leaving to move onto Coogan's house, who is having a party, he has the plan to asking him to finance a DVD collection of the old series. Richard is suckered into thinking its going to happen until he's soon the laughing stock, all from revenge for the words he said years ago. He leaves, getting drunk for the night, he is sent home on a boat after the job being done and not welcome on the island anymore. Ready to leave, he gets some old fan mail and one contains a video tape. He heads to his old producer who now lives in a caravan in hell of a state t watch and it shows that its actually the Mayor who committed the murder.
The producer wants to use the tape as blackmail for all the money he has lost over the years through Mindhorn shutting down. Richard though want to simply hand it into the police and after a small altercation they seem to agree. When he heads to hand the tape in, he realises that Melly is on top o the aquaduct with a gun in a standoff with the police and the news crew arrive so Richard has the idea to show the tape. Once play is pressed its been switched by the producer and instead it shows his drunken night, dancing with a blow up doll and doing drugs. Humiliated and stuck with Melly after trying to talk him down, he needs to escape so they both run back to Melly's hideout. Meanwhile the producer meets the Mayor to blackmail him but instead is shot and killed by the female Detective who turns out is in on the cover up. The hideout is filled with Mindhorn things and Richard wakes up after being glued into his suit so that he can always been in character. Melly reveals he has a copy of the tape in the Mindhorn car because the show and comics always told him to make a copy just in case! When the get out of the hideout, the female detective is waiting there to kill them and get the tape but instead Melly through old merchandise in her eyes to blind her to escape. Back at Patricia, the old flame's house, Richard finds out that his stunt double has been hiding letter from her when she thinks that he didn't write to her at all. The old car isn't in the garage now but being used in the parade so the are on the chase for the tape. They hijack the car after a fight scene which the audience think I staged and head to the beach to find that the copy of the tape is actually made out of clay. Melly is shot by the female copper and passes out, but not before Mindhorn promises to close the case. In a slow motion scene of dodging bullets with the evil policewoman left confused, he dances around the screen to slow music until she runs out of bullets and then slaps the gun out of her hand. She has already shot Patricia who eats a blood capsule to fake her death. He records a confession off her with the recorder that Melly insisted he wore on his belt, he's ready to hand her in until he is shot by her last bullet and finds out they weren't blanks as her thought and they were all real bullets so he faints. She is arrested along with the Mayor and everyone survives to tell the tale, including Melly.
With all of the old 80's political incorrectness and dry humour, cheesy one liners and chat up lines, it was quite enjoyable as far as British comedies go. The acting was actually really good for the role that Barratt was meant to play and the mans ability to have a soulful character worked. There wouldn't have been a massive budget for this film so everything that was used is brilliant. It's not really a movie that will stand the test of time for me but for a one off, I enjoyed it. It wasn't a great ending, always looking for that last laugh but not finishing off with all of the emotional side.
No comments:
Post a Comment