Brighton Rock

The main character of this movie is Pinkie Brown, a small-time thug in Brighton, England, in the 1960s. Pinkie's true evil nature comes out when he tries to take over a small gang of criminals after their leader had been killed by a rival gang. As played here, Pinkie is in his 20s and, as brash and amoral as he is, he and his mediocre cohorts are no match for the rival gang that basically runs underground crime in Brighton.

The action is sordid and ugly, but the glossy color photography works at cross purposes to conveying that mood. Much of the photography is more appropriate for an art film than for this down-and-dirty fare, making me think that maybe black and white would have been a more appropriate choice. As Pinkie, I found Sam Riley just a little too handsome for the part--he does not exude the menace and harsh personality that is Pinkie's nature.

I found the initial setup scenes rapid-paced and confusing, requiring close attention; if you don't follow what has happened early on, you will be at a loss to fully understand what happens later. An additional complication to my following the opening scenes was the fact that I am not a Brit and didn't always follow the cadences and clipped manner of speaking. I confess to starting the movie over after about fifteen minutes, with English subtitles turned on. That was a great help.

The score that often seems to aspire to the transcendent seems greatly out of place.

I wish I had seen this movie before having read the book, since having some of the images in mind would have been good. Never having been to Brighton, my mental picture of it would have been greatly enhanced by what is well captured here. While the movie strips from the book much of the depth of the themes of sexuality, morality, loyalty, and sin, there are things in the movie that I found improved upon the book. I liked Helen Mirren's portrayal of Ida as a more centered person than the blithe Ida of the book, and John Hurt fleshed out Ida's friend Phil better than what I got from the book. And there are a lot of little things. For example, I pictured the candy, Brighton rock, as being something like a candy cane rather than the weighty rod seen in the movie. I regret that Pinkie's lawyer Prewitt was deleted--he was a truly Dickensian character in the book. And why the great ending in the book was changed is beyond me.

Hearing the news that John Boulting's classic 1946 adaptation of Graham Greene's novel Brighton Rock was to be remade filled with me trepidation. The current spate of mostly inferior remakes are one thing but meddling with the perfection of this archetypical gangster film is another. How can any updated version possibly replace the indelible image of the 23 year old Richard Attenborough as the flick knife wielding baby faced assassin Pinkie Brown? As filming began and rumours of a 1960s Mods and Rockers setting emerged I began to have serious doubts if this remake was really going to be a good idea! Thankfully fears that Rowan Joffe's Brighton Rock is a sanitised version of the story are quickly allayed. The relocation of Brighton Rock to the 1960s does not mean that we are entering into the trendy youth culture of the era or being taken on an adolescent search for identity. The sharp-suited posers and greasy leather clad Rockers are merely a backdrop to a much darker reality as we are taken into a terrifying world of crime, guilt and inner-torment.

Brighton Rock is concerned with the concepts of good versus evil, sin and redemption they were present in Greene's novel, the 1946 adaptation and once again are central in Rowan Joffe's remake. However, additional scenes and alterations to the 2010 update mean that Pinkie's progressively violent behaviour is almost justified. In the exhilarating opening sequence Pinkie witnesses the brutal murder of the gang's original leader Kite when Fred Hale slashes his throat. When Pinkie sees one of the few role models in his life burbling and drowning in his own blood revenge it seems is not only on the cards but unavoidable. This kind of black and white, eye for an eye, morality detracts from the original story where Pinkie Brown's vicious streak appeared to be innate and a product of original sin. The character of Ida Arnold (Dame Helen Mirren) also has undergone a significant adjustment. In opposition to the Catholicism of Pinkie and Rose the pleasure seeking Ida was concerned only with the here and now. Mirren's portrayal plays these aspects down resulting in a more serious role and a lessening of the story's theological study.

As with Attenborough before him Sam Riley's Pinkie is intense, dangerous and teeters on the edge of sanity. If anything in Joffe's adaptation Pinkie Brown undergoes a broader transformation than before as greater emphasis being placed upon his journey from a nervous lackey to maniacal gang leader. Unfortunately the 30 year old Riley he does not resemble a juvenile delinquent. Therefore the shy adolescent awkwardness that Pinkie displays towards adulthood and in particular his relationship with Rose, (conveyed so expertly by Attenborough,) is absent.

Andrea Riseborough gives an outstanding performance as Rose she too goes on a psychological journey from being a naive and mousey youngster to an assertive young woman attracted to Pinkie's confidence and menace. The scene in which Pinkie in effect buys Rose from her abusive father for £150 adds a social realist dimension to the film uncovering the lack of options available to a young working-class woman in 'sixties Britain. The squalid surroundings of Pinkie and Rose's flat complete with peeling wallpaper, scuffed furniture and squeaky floorboards are also reminiscent of a Kitchen Sink drama. There is some impressive cinematography by John Mathieson as the camera pans from the threatening crashing waves on Brighton Beach to the scenic seaside cafés foreshadowing the storm that is building. The swelling orchestral soundtrack also adds to the heightened sense of panic and drama. The tea rooms, arcades and dance-halls of 1960s Brighton are also accurately recreated as are the neglected interiors of the boarding houses. And yet… There is something oddly unreal about Joffe's Brighton Rock partly down to the unnecessary time shift which does nothing but confuse the audience. The film's characters seem stuck in the wrong era originating as they do from austere post-war Britain both in appearance and behaviour. Using the Mods and Rockers backdrop and casting of Philip Davis, (who appeared in Quadrophenia,) as Spicer turns the movie into a pastiche of sorts leaving us with a souped-up hyper-reality. This is Brighton as seen through the eyes of the cinema goer not the world of Graham Greene's novel. Dark, menacing and suspenseful Rowan Joffe's Brighton Rock is well worth seeing it is just unfortunate that the film is not as good as the sum of its parts.

A really big step in the career of Richard Attenborough came when he starred in the first film of Graham Greene's novel Brighton Rock. It was so good you'd think no one would try and top it, but in 2010 the story was filmed again and the time of the story updated from post war Great Britain to the swinging sixties and the riots between the Mod and Rocker teens. That is the background for young Sam Riley to try and take a really big step in the rackets.

Which are pretty much the same as they are here although it is rare that guns are used as per the culture. Sam Riley in the lead role that helped give a boost to Richard Attenborough's career is an amoral young man who gets involved in a homicide. A revenge killing really, but a young woman who works in Helen Mirren's store can finger him for the crime.

What to do but woo Andrea Riseborough and marry her so she can't testify against him. But when Riley's crew leans on Mirren's friend John Hurt at his place of business and the guy that Riley killed was Mirren's boyfriend she'll do what it takes to take Riley down.

Some nice shots of Brighton which is like Atlantic City here, a rather run down resort area, or at least Atlantic City was before the casinos arrived. Riley, Riseborough, Mirren, and Hurt do quite well by their roles.

There is a really nice performance by Andy Serkis as a rather flamboyant gay gangster who is head of the other mob. He checks out Riley like a slab of beef on the rack at the butcher shop, but he doesn't let his lust get in the way of squelching a rival.

There's also a little more of the Catholicism of Graham Greene in the plot than there was in the first film. Even as amoral a young man as Riley does get guilt tripped quite a bit for the advantage he takes of Riseborough.

Not a bad film, but not up to what Richard Attenborough starred in.

I went to see this film with some trepidation. The original Graham Greene novel is very good and one of my favourites. The original film from 1947 was also extremely good, with Richard Attenborough as an unlikely but splendid villain. However this version was excellent. The fact that it had been updated to the 60s, which had worried me a little, worked well. Of course it did not have the period feel, but the aggression, violence and fighting for territory of the Mods and Rockers (which I remember well) echoed beautifully the behaviour of the gangsters and gave the opportunity for some very effective scenes visually. The acting I found completely plausible, with Phill Davies, John Hurt, Sam Riley and Andrea Riseborough all giving authentic portrayals. Helen Mirren, perhaps, looked a little too glamorous physically, but her acting was fine. Brighton itself was a wonderful additional character in all this. The contrast between the somewhat mindless hedonism of the holiday makers and the violent and ugly activities of the underworld was extremely effective and the use of the landscape beautiful and horrific in equal measure. The theme of sin, guilt and Catholicism was probably not dealt with as interestingly as in the novel, but that is a frequent limitation of the medium of film. Why on earth the makers of the film felt that they were entitled to "improve" on Graham Greene's ending I do not know. But it did not spoil my overall judgement that this was a very good film. I hope it will inspire those who have not already done so to read the novel.

One of the perils of remaking a classic film is that your version will be compared unfavourably with the original. Of course, there have always been film-makers who have dared to brave this peril, and it is as well that there have been, otherwise we would have been deprived of, for example, Kenneth Branagh's interpretation of "Henry V", which spoke to the eighties just as Laurence Olivier's had spoken to the forties.

Graham Greene's novel "Brighton Rock" was famously adapted for the screen by the Boulting brothers in 1947, and their version is widely regarded as one of the greatest films from the "Golden Age" of the British cinema during the forties and fifties. Rowan Joffé's recent remake has not been universally well-received, particularly by those who believe that nothing can ever compete with its illustrious predecessor. Much as I admire the Boultings' film, however, I have to admit that the newcomer has many virtues of its own.

The main character is Pinkie Brown, the youthful leader of a gang of thugs whose principal activity is protection racketeering. Early in the film, Pinkie murders Hale, a member of a rival gang, in revenge for the murder by Hale of Pinkie's colleague Kite. (In the original novel and the 1947 film, Hale was a journalist who had been investigating the gang's activities. Another change is the date at which the story takes place; although the novel and original film are both set in the 1930s, this adaptation is set during the Mods and Rockers era of the 1960s).

Pinkie tries to cover his tracks by creating a false alibi for himself, which leads to the commission of further crimes and to Pinkie's marriage to Rose, a young waitress who he believes might be in possession of evidence which could send him to the gallows. Pinkie is not in love with Rose, but marries her because at the time the film is set there was a rule of English law that a wife could not give evidence against her husband. The ending is closer to the one Greene wrote in his novel, although Joffé keeps the famous twist which the writer introduced when he produced the 1947 screenplay.

Joffe said that he made the film because, on reading the novel, he "fell absolutely in love with the character of Rose", and the treatment of this character is, in my view, the one area in which the modern film is better than the earlier one. Andrea Riseborough's interpretation of the character- downbeat, dowdy, bespectacled and needy- seems just right for the role. Rose responds to Pinkie's overtures because he is the only person to have shown her any affection, and she is naïve enough to overlook his obvious criminality and not to realise that his affection for her is feigned. Carol Marsh's Rose, however, was rather too glamorous; it was difficult to imagine her as someone lacking in male admirers.

There are also good performances from two veterans of the British cinema, John Hurt and Helen Mirren. Hurt plays the bookmaker Phil Corkery, who has a more important role in this adaptation than he does in the book. Mirren plays Ida Arnold, the woman whose determination to get at the truth results in Pinkie's downfall. In the 1947 Ida was played by Hermione Baddeley as a blowsy, ageing showgirl and a casual acquaintance of Hale; here she becomes the manageress of the café where Rose works and a close friend of the murdered man.

I was less impressed by Sam Riley who, as Pinkie, lacked the sense of menace and evil which Richard Attenborough brought to the role. At 30, moreover, Riley seemed too old to play a teenager. (Attenborough would have been 24 in 1947, and looked younger). Also, I couldn't see the point of setting the story in the 1960s, as the "Mods and Rockers" element added little, or nothing, to Greene's story. Pinkie's gang, and the rival Colleoni gang, were both part of Brighton's own criminal underworld, whereas the Mods and Rockers were drawn from all over the country, especially London, and merely chose Brighton, and other seaside resorts, as convenient places for their battles.

Joffé has also discarded a lot of the religious content of the original novel. Greene made Ida an atheist whose system of values was based upon secular ideas of "right" and "wrong", as opposed to Pinkie and Rose, both believing Catholics who believed firmly in "good" and "evil". This opposition between two contrasting attitudes to morality was an important theme of the novel, but it is not something dwelt on at length in either film. The 1947 version downplayed Pinkie's religious beliefs, possibly as a concession to Catholics unhappy with the idea of one of their flock being portrayed as a violent criminal, although it did concentrate on Rose's spiritual development. The modern film acknowledges that both Pinkie and Rose are "Romans", but for the most part avoids theological issues and turns Greene's story into the basis for a grim, grey neo-noir type crime thriller. (The 1947 film was set during a sunny summer Bank Holiday; this version appears to have been shot in winter, with Brighton largely deserted by holidaymakers). It is up to the viewer to decide which approach he or she prefers. 7/10