This was a preview screening and the last time I attended a preview screening it was 'Fly Me to the Moon' which had a decent crowd. The number of people attending this screening at 7:45pm on a Tuesday night? 3. Not the best indication of how many people are interested in this film. The set up of the film is that Ian McKellen plays Jimmy Erskine who is a theatre critic and when he gets sacked from the newspaper he works at, he hires an actress who he has routinely rubbished to seduce the editor of the newspaper so he can blackmail him and get his job back.
GOOD POINTS
Good Central Performances
Ian McKellen is always worth the price of admission alone and despite my issues with the characters, I thought he was fun to watch. Gemma Arterton was perfectly fine as Nina but I do wonder what she saw in the role that made her agree to do it, The thing about Nina was that she was a likeable person but she could have put up more of a fight against Erskine. Mark Strong is another actor that can always be relied upon to deliver a solid performance.
Looks Very Nice
This film looks very nice and I believed that we were in the 1930’s. It feels like a lovely world to be in even though this time period has been done to death but the cars are lovely to look at, the costumes are very nice the interiors are all very much of the period but this is me struggling to find things to add in the good section,
Alfred Enoch (almost) steals the show
He’s not one of the biggest names in UK film or television but Alfred Enoch gives a very good performance as Tom who is the secretary/lover of Erskine. He appears and then disappears for a while before coming back to be the person that almost steals the show. He works very well with McKell
BAD POINTS
Too Slow
The film has a slow pace and normally I don’t mind that but I have to feel like it’s building up to something and the film took way too long to get to that. The film had a running time of around an hour and 40 minutes and yet I don’t think it was until the hour mark that the film felt like it was heading to something.
Average Plot
Aside from the slow pace, the plot is the biggest weakness. The idea of someone blacking their boss and using an adversary as an ally could have been a good idea but it’s sort of used as sub plot to deal with the fall out. Again if the plot had been structured better then it would have worked out better and if the film had been given maybe another 10-15 minutes then things might have worked out better.
Rushed End
I read in the IMDB that they reshot the ending and it shows. In no time at all, Tom admits what he and Erskine have done and Erskine is in a prison cell writing a letter to Tom saying that he is being left out of it and gets to live in Erskine’s house and become his beneficiary. There is no time to take in the downfall of a figure like Erskine and thats a shame. Again if the plot were better then we would have got a more satisfying ending
OVERALL
I wanted to like this movie more than I did. I think that if this film were on at Christmas on TV then I would say it was very good but I found myself wondering just what this was doing in a cinema. I thought that it was one of the more disappointing films that I have seen at the cinema this year.
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