The Actors

At first I thought this film was going to annoy me.It was as though I had seen this movie somewhere before. The disillusioned hero, the father figure and the 9 year old sister who is older and wiser than her years (see Gregory's girl), but then, not 15 minutes in, it became a laugh out loud, comic gem of a movie. Dylan Moran (who I thought was just going to bug me) was excellent. As was Mr Gambon and the mad Scottish hitman. Lena Headey was extremely sexy. For half of the film I was trying to remember where I'd seen her before. The Parole officer. She has the most amazing smile. But clearly the true hero of this film is Mr Caine. This man should do much more comedy. This ranks alongside some of his best comedy roles (Without a Clue, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels). He is a pleasure to watch in all of his scenes but especially the end.

No one can quite say f**k the way Michael can.

Right, for a start, I liked it. It was funny, It was farcical; Michael Caine and Dylan Moran threw themselves into their roles with such obvious glee, that I found it impossible not to be swayed by this film despite its many obvious flaws. The musical score just didn't seem appropriate; a number of the scenes appeared irrelevant and a little clunky; it just is not perfectly crafted and does appear cobbled together at times. But, and its a big but, its just funny. It just is - Michael Caine is wonderful as the neverhasbeen, entirely self absorbed O'Malley. While Moran handles his (definately more challenging) role with an almost nonchalent ease - a superb actor and one to watch in the future me thinks. In summary, and despite its flaws, if you don't laugh at this nice little film then your a bigger cynic than me - and you have my pity!

Sadly the whole here is not greater than the sum of the parts - and heaven only knows there are enough parts in this rather lacklustre theatrical-based comedy. Disillusioned thespian "Tony" (Sir Michael Caine) is treading the boards every evening playing the Nazi variation of Shakespeare's "Richard III" to an audience who were either doing a school project, or who just wanted to keep warm. One night he and one of his on-stage minions "Tom" (Dylan Moran) concoct a plan that could see them fleece a local gangster "Barreller" (Sir Michael Gambon) of a small fortune then play him and his felonious colleagues off one another long enough for them to escape with the loot. The basic idea is quite fun, but sadly only Sir Michael really turns up - and even then, his tongue is pretty firmly planted in his cheek. The rest of this is a pretty weak and contrived comedy poking fun at a load of things Irish and rarely raises much of a laugh. There is far too much dialogue and Moran, erstwhile a talented stand-up comic, looks uncomfortable and out of his depth amidst the more established cast which also, rather inexplicably, includes Miranda Richardson as well a few rent-a-cameos from others from the British comedy circuit. It's perfectly watchable for ninety minutes, it's not in the least offensive. Nor is it remotely memorable.

Strange effort part funded by the now-defunct FilmFour and DreamWorks amongst others, supported by the Irish film board. Basically two actors trying to act their way out of trouble.

Let's start with the good news. Child actress, very good, convincing. Lena Headey as Dolores, stunning, smouldering, good performance, I'll come back to her in a moment. Dylan Moran as Tom, good enough. Michael Caine as fading actor O'Malley, quite good, believable. Michael Gambon as Barreller, mostly quite good though sometimes he did look a bit too much like, well, Michael Gambon. Plot a bit perfunctory, Tom (at O'Malley's suggestion) pretends to be someone who Barreller owes money to and collects it instead. Things then start going wrong.

So what's the problem?

Though there are laughs along the way, some of it I found too horribly embarassing to watch, and at one point even to listen to (I put my fingers in my ears for a minute or two). It does have a romantic sub-plot, but it isn't central enough to call this a romantic film. I should also say that some of the material involving Dolores, towards the end, is dodgey for 15 year olds, and this should really be considered X-rated. In the states it's a 17-cert (R rating) not a 15 as in the UK.

I liked the throwaway ending, but though I wanted to enjoy the film, really I did, too much of it was neither funny nor entertaining. Sorry but it didn't do it for me, in spite of favourable external reviews.

Anthony O'Malley is an old actor who has long since said goodbye to his best days. A lacklustre performance in a terrible version of Richard III that nobody wants to see. One of his support cast is the unsuccessful and jobbing actor Tom who is equally in need of some form or career or income boost. In order to help develop his villain, O'Malley has been hanging around a rough pub in the docks with a criminal called Barreller and, in doing so he has learnt that Barreller owes another party money – a party he does not know. So O'Malley makes a proposition to Tom – that Tom will present himself as an agent for this "other party", collect the money and split it with O'Malley. The first act is simple and well executed but quickly the two find themselves getting deeper into lies.

At the time of release I must confess that the trailer did nothing to make me want to see this but, by the time the television premier rolled around I had forgotten this and decided to tune in for the presence of Dylan Moran whom I find very funny in certain things. Sadly this was not one of them and laughs were pretty thin on the ground throughout. So instead I settled into the plot, which at first seemed to offer some interesting scenarios before quickly collapsing into a series of disguises and unconvincing ideas that don't really work. It isn't "bad" per se but it certainly isn't any good. It produced enough forward movement and amusing ideas to hold my interest but it rarely did anything to justify doing so and I was generally disappointed with the fact that it failed to do much.

The characters are not that well developed and the sort of pathos I hoped would add value to the material and there isn't that much for the actors to work with. This lack of depth means Michael Caine can't do much with his character and has no laughs to help him out – thus seeing him finally dressed as a woman is yet another low in a career of highs and lows. Moran struggles with the lack of good comedy to work with but still makes a good fist of his various characters and is amusing if not funny. Gambon collects his check and turns in an average performance while Headey looks sexy but doesn't have much else to do. Iverson also lacks material but she gives a nice performance and avoids being an annoying cute kid type of actor.

Overall this is a fairly average film that offers some fun early on but generally just becomes messy and poorly delivery the more it goes on. The cast are so-so mainly because they lack the laughs (Moran) or the depth (Caine) that they needed to turn in good work. It all does enough to be watchable but it doesn't do anything particularly well.