My Kingdom

I watched "My Kingdom" on Pay-per-View. Luckily, I didn't pay for it, my friend did. How anyone can like this movie is beyond me. I like Shakespeare very much, and maybe even King Lear, but "My Kingdom" sucked. I am beginning to hate gangster movie, whether they are American or British. In this one, the plot is so confusing and some of the characters I couldn't figure out either. But I don't need to ask questions about the plot or the characters because I really don't care. I don't remember much about King Lear, I saw it a long time ago and obviously, this movie is much worse. It should have never been made in the first place. Lynn Redgrave was a total waste in that role. Yeah, and for those who liked the movie... well, just shoot me.

I started checking out Don Boyd's work after seeing his documentary work. What a beautiful, dark and witty film this is, written with Nick Davies who is a superb Guardian writer - his input must have been important although the cinematic imagery and the quirky, witty performances complement the originality of the script.There is some fantastic funny dialogue. Liverpool's landscape has never been portrayed like this before and Boyd gave the great Richard Harris the tools for a superb display of acting intelligence. It is on occasions brutal and uncompromising and the script plays cunningly with the premise - that the court and story of Shakespeare's King Lear can be transplanted to modern crime corrupted Liverpool. It also takes liberties with the fates of Lear's feuding daughters. Cordelia survives but all the actresses who play the girls are wonderfully cast and are all very believable. I have visited Liverpool. All of what Boyd shows is true. Even the evil Sikh character and the corrupt cop, an almost existential performance by Aidan Gillen is unforgettable. A great and seemingly under-rated film although i noticed that really good film critics like Philip French and the man from the LA Times gave it a great review. Compared to other Britsih films it stands out. I wished I could have seen it on a big screen but the DVD i bought had some great extras including some screen tests - I have not seen that before except on a James Dean DVD once.(drool,drool). By the way I am a girl and it is quite violent. But don't believe the nonsense those guys on this site who have written about it so negatively.See it and make up your own mind. Even if you don't like all of it, you will be fascinated as I was. Pity there will be no more Richard Harris movies. He was a great.

and one his best. He plays the boss of a Liverpool rime family, whose own naivety brings his downfall. This is based on King Lear but it doesn´t really work for me here. We´re supposed to believe that this tough, streetwise gang boss would be stupid enough not to see the consequences of his actions (I don´t want to give the story away, but those familiar with King Lear will know what happens. This supposed sudden naivety goes totally aginst the grain of the character Harris portrays in the film up until his fateful decision.

It was an interesting idea but just doesn´t work for me and the second half of the film becomes increasingly silly as a consequence. I´ve also no idea why one of the main gangsters is a Sihk. Liverpool is unusual amongst British cities in having a very small asian population and I don´t think I´ve ever seen a Sihk there. Strange.

That said, it´s not a bad film. There´s some good camerawork, Harris is on good form and the supporting cast are mostly very good. 8/10 for the first half of the film, 5/10 for the second.

It's a fallacy, of course, that you can't go wrong with great source material, judging by the unholy slew of variable Shakespeare knock-offs perennially cluttering cinemas. This is one of the better ones.

Legendary British director-producer Don Boyd (the man behind Scum and The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle), uses 'King Lear' as the premise for an uncompromising tale of family (dis)loyalties, played out against the violent backdrop of gangland Liverpool.

Following his wife's murder in a street mugging, weary crime boss Sandeman (Harris) entrusts his sizeable criminal dynasty to his three daughters - one of whom, Jo (Catherwood), flatly refuses to play ball, as the other power-crazed pair, Tracey (Pilkington) and Kath (Lombard), plot his downfall. Meanwhile, a veteran customs agent, Quick (Bell), is also doggedly on his tail, determined to send him down before they both retire.

Though not the first attempt to ground Shakespeare in such territory (1955's Joe MacBeth was a misguided attempt to transpose the Scottish Play to New York's criminal underworld), My Kingdom delivers with considerable panache. While most of the basic story elements are in place, writers Boyd and 'Guardian' journalist Davies carefully avoid a straight re-telling (many lines here being playful nods to other Shakespeare works, in any case). Instead, they employ smart, darkly funny spins - witness the siblings' competing eulogies by Karaoke to their dead mother.

The performances here, from a top-flight British and Irish cast, are exemplary. Harris, as the shattered Sandeman, proves one needn't have lived the life of a cloistered monk to produce great performances in your seventies.

Yet another film inspired by 'King Lear'; this time set in the world of drug running and violence in rundown Liverpool. This makes it as quirky a setting as Imperial Japan (Ran) or the wild West (Broken Lance) but it doesn't quite come off.

Yes, the parallels are there. Richard Harris as Sandeman gives up control of his gangster empire to his two unlikeable daughters while effectively 'banishing' the youngest; there is a character who has his eyes put out as Gloucester did ... and yet, behind this inspiration the story is thin indeed.

Beautifully shot and atmospheric in its detail of the bleak Merseyside setting, this film disappoints with largely poor acting and a cop-out ending - where we should have had fire and brimstone, we had a whimper.

Richard Harris however is excellent, as ever, in a towering performance which makes me grieve that we never got to see him play Lear for real. There are few actors who could put this complex character across (a variant on the one he played in 'Trojan Eddie', sure, but a meaty role none the less). He's let down by the script but with what he has to work with he is impressive and the one reason to see this film.