The Critic

It's a period theater drama set in London, England, in 1934. Jimmy Erskine (Ian McKellen) is the elderly, acerbic drama critic for "The Chronicle," a national tabloid run by Viscount David Brooke (Mark Strong), the son of the recently deceased owner. Erskine has been writing devastating reviews about 30-something Nina Land's (Gemma Arterton) performances for 10 years. Nina has been the mistress of Ben Wyley (Ben Barnes), an artist doing a painting of 12 of the "Chronicles" stalwarts. Other crucial performances come from Erskine's secretary, Tom (Alfred Enoch), and Ben's wife, Cora (Romola Garai).

Brooke fires Erskine after learning of Erskine's homosexuality. Erskine seeks revenge by manipulating Nina with unforeseen and tragic consequences because Erskine doesn't know about critical relationships. What becomes of Erskine after it all?

"The Critic" is nicely done. Ian McKellen is blustery, unethical, manipulative, and a joy to listen to. Mark Strong is a plummy, arrogant newspaper publisher. Gemma Arterton is trying to follow her dream. The secondary characters behave appropriately. It all depends on McKellen, and I'm glad the film ends as it does. "The Critic" is a little slow at points, which drops it a point.

I had hoped for so much more from The Critic due to its premise, title and cast. I was bitterly disappointed. The pointless and fruitless direction of this film is frustrating. We see a random array of events that add little to no value. It seems like we are watching a bunch of uneventful situations playout, I found myself asking so what? Humanity is not great at times but why did we need to see a film about this and how on earth did this get the green light? Where was the payoff or purpose? Veteran actor, Ian Mckellen, gives a solid performance but it is not enough to save this pitiful excuse of a film.

If you saw Sir Ian McKellen with fellow thesp Sir Derek Jacobi in the television sitcom "Vicious" from around ten years ago, you'll be able to anticipate the gist of his characterisation of the acerbic theatre critic "Erskine" who is way more famed for distributing bile rather than bouquets. His new boss (Mark Strong) wants the newspaper to appeal to an altogether more wholesome family audience and so wants him to tone things down a bit. "Yeah, right" thinks he - and then his own behaviour gets him into trouble with the police and given one month's notice from his job. Facing looming ignominy, he determines to get the lowdown on his ostensibly pure as the driven snow aristocratic proprietor and to that end recruits aspiring actress "Nina" (Gemma Arterton) of whom he has been much less than flattering in the past. Rather gullibly, she agrees to become a pawn in his manipulate game that leads to a series of misadventures and thence to a tragedy that maybe puts the role of opinionated curmudgeon into perspective. This starts of quite entertainingly with plenty of pith and ghastliness from the star, but very quickly it descends into an entirely far-fetched and rather disappointing affair (no pun intended) that plays to just about every stereotype as it rather sadly sets out to prove that the best bits are all in the trailers. At it's best, the writing does make you smile and writhe a little uncomfortably in your cinema seat, but for the most part it's just predicable with characters that it's fairly easy not to like - except, maybe, Alfred Enoch's factotum "Tom" whom at least starts off with some shred of human decency to counter "Erskine" and his selfishness. Ben Barnes shows he is ageing well but again hasn't really enough of a part to work with developing his lovestruck character and Strong is really anything but. It does look good, but it's too reliant on a shock factor that isn't so very original and that soon peters out.

Unlikely the movie's titular character, Jimmy Erskine, played deliciously by Ian McKellen, I am not a professional critic/judge/reviewer.

I am, however, someone who enjoys a good story. Alas, "The Critic" baffles me. On the one hand, it had the potential of good mystery, but it didn't choose to go that way. It also had the potential to be a good revenge caper. Sadly, it also didn't go that way.

Instead, we get in a quick run-time of 1 hour 40 minutes in which we don't really get good characterization, a good plot, or even a good crime story. Instead, we get a hurried and inadequate portrayal of a desperate man.

And why is he desperate? That's not really the right question. If you do decide to watch this movie, you'll know what I mean.

The director, fully aware of how bad the movie is, had 350 people from the Philippines give it a 10/10 rating (check the voting statistics if you like).

The Critic keeps a respectful distance from its material, favoring neat dramatic ironies over shocking twists or raw, anguished revelations. Perhaps the harshest criticism one could level against it-something Jimmy, the self-proclaimed judge of creative genius, might find particularly insulting-is that the film is far too polite and cautious for a portrayal of such a ruthless character.

Movie is thankfully short, yet it still feels drawn out. Its appeal will likely be limited to older audiences drawn by McKellen's name and the subject matter, offering them mildly engaging streaming content.