Dead Long Enough

Dead Long Enough doesn't do it all by numbers and it looks very pleasant with its Irish and Welsh settings, and an attractive cast who bring warmth to a rather slight story.

It's about two brothers with distinctly different personalities, an old flame who's had a child by one or the other of them, and some guns buried on a beach.

Douglas Henshall is very good, Michael Sheen and Jason Hughes do an entertaining double act and everyone else manages to survive some potentially twee light comedy.

It's not satirical, it's not particularly exciting, and it has about as much cinematic ambition as an episode of Only Fools and Horses – but it tells its story competently, it's well performed and the low budget production makes the best of the scenery.

There are a number of elements that smack of not-having-thought-it-through. Some of the dialogue is surreal – I have no idea what the Welsh secretary was talking about for instance (you'll know it when you see it) and Joe Pasquale is out of place, yet oddly endearing as a gay soldier on border patrol… Also, there are some very strange chapter titles that don't add much to anything… and the climactic chase is a bit naff.

But it doesn't fail because it doesn't hang itself on over-ambition. It could be a whole lot worse.

Oh deary me, what an angry review from the chap that went to the premiere of Dead Long Enough.

Worse for him, he was in the Audience which gave the film the Audience Prize at the Cardiff film festival. eeK!!

The chap very angry that such a fine writer like himself cannot raise funding for one of his own projects in Wales. Good to get it out there free himself up for his next attempt at getting a few bob to make a film, a really important serious film about something really important and serious.

He, I suspect might be one of the pseudo critics that the film is in fact satirising.

Personally, I really enjoyed the film I saw it in Ireland where I suspect people got the fact that it was taking 'the Mick' of how the Irish are portrayed in film.

Dead Long Enough to me was a complete parody of the way Ireland has been portrayed by an unintelligent British and American media, Gunmen, red heads, borders, soldiers, drink, some drugs, the oirishness of the Police while being a laugh was a satire on the way the Brits and Yanks see the Irish. Silly policemen in comic book style.

Did he not catch the whole Gunman escapade was parody. That the foreigners in love with the IRA man was ironic. By the way she was not Icelandic either. Did he not see the red haired colleen was in itself a satire on how some outsiders see Irish woman. Probably not.

No wonder the Welsh need a bit of help with their film making.

I'm glad he liked the music. I think that was Irish too. For gods sake someone in Wales give this guy a few quid to make a classic like How welsh was my valley.

Dead Long Enough Irish comedy is not dead yet.

The story follows Ben Jones played by Jason Hughes (This Life), a depressed Welsh Lawyer who lives in the shadow of his promiscuous TV celebrity brother Harry, played with tongue in cheek verve by British Los Angeles based actor Micheal Sheen (The Deal).

Ben hankers after his lost love, the fiery Irish colleen Sinead. In this case the Maureen O Hara role is well realized by Angeline Ball. (The Commitments). In a fit of pique Ben accepts the marriage proposal from his ball busting girlfriend excruciatingly played by Channel 4's Bo Selecta's Bauraunka O Shaunessy.

As a surprise Harry takes Ben back for a Stag night to where they were both happiest, the postcard-perfect land of Donegal, Ireland.

Such begins a series of chaotic events. As soon as the characters arrive in Ireland the film and humor take off. Dead Long Enough parodies such Irish classics as The Quiet Man, The Informer and Derby O Gill with a hilarious swipe at Clint Eastwood both in Dirty Harry and the Spaghetti Westerns. The film could be too esoteric for a broad American audience yet it's good to see the Irish doing it for themselves in this well worth catching satire.

John Hinde's fans look out for their favorite postcard.

Anne Maguire

This curio thing (it's a bit unfair to bestow the title "film" on it!) was screened on Irish TV last night and I stuck with it for about half an hour just to see how bad it got, but to be honest I gave up after the first commercial break. I read it was supposed to be a parody of all things "Oirish" in films, but I'm afraid I didn't manage to last til this kicked in. As one of the other reviewers noted, signs were ominous when it took about 5 minutes of credits including self congratulatory and vanity publishing style lists of people and film boards associated with it, before the actual title of the movie finally appeared with still little indication of what it was about.

Even then it was difficult to ascertain where exactly the film was supposed to be located, whether in Wales or Ireland, which wasn't helped by such glaring clangers as geographically inaccurate police/gardai cars and the fact that the majority of cars had UK registration plates even thought this was supposed to be Donegal? As I say, it may be unfair to classify this as a review considering I'm basing it on the 20 or 30 minutes I managed to stick with this for, but to term it comedy or anything near it based on what I saw is grossly misleading - I'd put it up there with Boy eats girl in terms of brutal Irish themed films of the past twenty years. It makes Darby O'Gill and the one with Dana (Rosemary Brown) as traveller girl look like classics!!