blrnani

A thoroughly vile film that is all about Russell's fevered mind and hardly anything about the musical genius who is supposed to be portrayed but is ultimately murdered by this sordid appalling excuse for a cinebiography.

I am disappointed with Melvyn Bragg for having written the story, as he always came across as a very well informed and highly intelligent presenter,.and with Richard Chamberlain and Glenda Jackson for having subjected themelves to this travesty. Less so in her case, as Jackson's career embraced both some very high peaks and some very deep troughs - though I doubt she felt any shame or regret as she was as attracted to controversy as the director himself.

Having just watched the film again after a distance of several decades, I shall happily throw it in the bin, as I do not want it anywhere near my film collection.

I did think of giving it a 3, because of the music, but even that tended to be subsumed by the horrors going on around it.

Looking for a film to watch before bed, I came across this and thought I'd give it a go.

After about half an hour of hard to endure schlock I did something I very rarely do, as I usually try to give a film a chance to surprise me. I came to the conclusion I was wasting precious time that could be used to watch something better and turned it off. And I quickly found something better - I would've been very unlucky to find worse, quite frankly.

Although the overall premise was okay, the plot often descended into silliness and the level of acting from numerous cast members was very third rate, sometimes becoming totally over the top (notably the villainess).

I don't like to be negative about films, but sometimes people need to be warned off productions that are really poor so they don't waste their time and/or money.

I cannot remember ever before having seen such a poor film that had such a talented cast.

I have never liked Will Ferrell or Damon Wayans, but Mark Wahlberg, Michael Keaton, Eva Mendes, Ray Stevenson, Steve Coogan, Dwayne Johnson, Samuel Jackson and Bobby Cannavale all usually range from good to excellent.

The idea of a spoof buddy cop movie was a good one and the plot was okay. Where it all fell apart was in over the top aggression and foul language and a frequently infantile sense of humour. I can imagine American kids in their early to mid-teens finding it entertaining, but struggle to see how an adult audience would find it anything other than irritating.