Cadavres à la pelle

Burke and Hare is a fast-paced, fun filled riot and the title roles are inhabited brilliantly by Simon Pegg (as William Burke) and Andy Serkis (as William Hare). Harking back to the good old American Werewolf days, Burke and Hare joyfully plays with your expectations, creating characters you like and sympathise with and then making you squirm as they nonchalantly murder their way through Edinburgh. Andy Serkis proves that he is the most easily likable man in the world with his earnest, all or nothing approach to acting, and as he reasons that mankind's fate is sealed the moment they're born, you almost find yourself nodding along happily when he suggests "helping them along the way". Simon Pegg has the straighter role, though not by far, as he gleefully goes from love-struck puppy-eyed romantic to monstrously suffocating old ladies in the blink of an eye, his facial expressions, mostly of dim witted "innocence" perfectly contrast with Serkis (Burke's reaction to Hare's coinage of the term "burking" is hilarious). All in all the duo are a perfect pare, thick as thieves and as funny as, well, horrible murderers.

The true story of Burke and Hare, the Edinburgh body snatchers, here is given a first comic turn. Both the leads and the support obviously enjoyed making this - and the result is a refreshingly straight-forward comedy with plenty of genuine laughs.

The film is simply a well-paced and well thought out comedy - everything for direction to script to the excellent costuming just works - and it is one of the better comedies of the year as it actually makes you laugh often and hard. The humour is dark enough to work, and all involved deliver it very well indeed.

We enjoyed this one a lot, it's got the right mix of silliness with a little horror that Simon Pegg does well, and all in this, this is just good straight-up entertainment with a huge galaxy of British comedians on display. Good stuff indeed.

Burke and Hare is a story of two men in Scotland in the late XIX century barely making a dime when an opportunity comes along to earn hard cash by killing people and selling their bodies to the benefit of science.

This movie may seem morally rotten at its core making a comedy out of murder, but it succeeds at it while quite a lot of comedies with far less harmful plots don't, not to mention that some of the most popular TV shows of today make it fit right in. John Landis comedies much in common with ZAZ productions and sometimes are almost live action cartoons. The title characters are shown as flawed people in a desperate situation which they think justifies their actions - we don't laugh with them, only at them. And that's intentional.

John Landis came back with a surprisingly decent feature. It's as if the MTV-style cinema revolution has passed him by (the one that hit the new Sherlock Holmes square in the face). No camera gymnastics, no forced sensual assault, all the action and physical comedy happens in frame. Burke and Hare is his first 2.35:1 feature and it shows - the frame at first appears a little too wide, like if the characters were taken from a 16:9 movie and arranged accordingly. By the way, "highly entertaining", "very funny" and "packed with the cream of British talent" - those bits on the poster aren't far from the truth.

Released just in time for Halloween is the macabre tale of Burke and Hare! Set in 1820's Edinburgh, two Irish immigrants, William Burke (Simon Pegg) and William Hare (Andy Serkis), try one business venture after the next, and one after the next they fail. Just at the point where they're about to face financial ruin, the duo come up with an ingenious idea when they spot a in the niche in the market for the supply and demand of fresh dead bodies which manages to turn their fortunes around.

The story is inspired by true events which took place in Edinburgh between November 1827 and 31 October 1828 when the real life Bukre and Hare murdered 16 people and sold their bodies to a private anatomy lecturer, Doctor Robert Knox (played by Tom Wilkinson in the film), for dissection at Edinburgh Medical College. Although this is the 8th time their story has been brought to the big screen, this marks the first time that we see them as two likable lead characters.

From a screenplay penned by Nick Moorcroft and Piers Ashworth and directed by the legendary John Landis, Burke And Hare harks back to the days of the old Ealing Studios dark comedies like Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Ladykillers (1955) which director John Landis is very fond of. It looks at the friendship between these two guys and focuses on the idea of who the bad guys really are. The doctors or the killers themselves? Mixing in a little Shakespeare with an all female production of Macbeth by Isla Fisher's character, Ginny, an aspiring young actress whom Burke falls madly in love with, another layer is added to the story. While Ginny ponders what would drive a man like Macbeth to murder, Burke looks at her and explains the character's motivation; "He did it for love".

By and large, I really enjoyed Bukre and Hare. The biggest challenge the story faced was turning two mass murderers into characters you can follow, laugh with and have empathy for and I think this film does it really well. As Burke is talked into the business with Hare, there's never the slightest feeling that his friend is purposefully leading him down a path to his own downfall, unlike the real Hare who gave Burke up in the end to escape a public hanging. Another element of the movie which was enjoyable was seeing so many familiar faces turning up in smaller roles; Ronnie Corbett decked out in his red and blue uniform as Captain McLintock, Christopher Lee as Old Joseph, one of Buke and Hare's early unfortunates and perhaps the most hilarious scene of all is when they push Paul Whitehouse down a flight of stairs! It's a good one to see if you're after something dark and funny this Halloween.

While there was another movie with a similar theme, that I watched last year, I thought this would be superior to that one. I mean this is made by John Landis. So I was expecting quite a bit more from it, I have to admit. It does not disappoint completely, it just feels like a bit too light. There seems to be something missing. Character development is straightforward, but still it's nothing grand. Something I came to expect from a Landis movie.

Of course I might be nit-picking. The movie is not bad at all. It has quite a few comic moments (an intercourse scene that is just funny and could not be called arousing at all, works greatly, there are scenes of great comedy value besides that too), but there is still something missing to make it better. I would recommend a watch. I'd just say not to expect too much!

Edit: I just found out a month ago, that there is a very good chance, that there is another cut of this movie. A cut approved by Mr. Landis himself (which seems not to have been the case with this one) ... that would explain quite a lot ...