BURKE AND HARE (2010 - Cert 15)

John Landis' return from a 12 year break from cinema was an event in 2010 that didn't really get as much press as it should have done. A hiatus of over a decade from the man who brought us An American Werewolf in London, Blues Brothers, Trading Places and the affectionately remembered The Three Amigos, should really have been greeted by huge fanfare, but the waters barely rippled.

In many ways, the story of Burke and Hare, is classic Landis. Serial murders in Edinburgh between 1827 - 1831, committed solely for the purpose of selling the corpses to a doctor for research (a historic and brutal version of Cash Converters) is the perfect combination of the darkness of death and the farcical lengths people go to for economic gain, ideally suited to Landis' blackly comic visions.



He gets a good cast on board as well. Burke and Hare themselves are played by Simon Pegg, the film geek's leading man, and Andy Serkis, a brilliant actor with cult status for the choice of some of his roles. They couldn't be a better fit for a film heralding the return of a director held in such high esteem by film buff-dom. Isla Fisher is a good addition as well as the love interest, attractive but goofy and comedic in her own right. Tim Curry and Tom Wilkinson are present and correct as rival doctors trying to beat each other to advances in the medical profession. Christopher Lee has a little cameo, a couple of British TV comedy favourites turn up in Paul Whitehouse and Jessica Hynes. Oh and Ronnie Corbett plays the head of the militia. Remarkable.

So, great director, ludicrously dark yet true story, dependably decent and slightly mental, if unspectacular casting. It has to be a sure-fire black comedy hit.

Perhaps it should have been, but quite frankly it's all a bit of a mess. The story itself rumbles along at a good pace, predictable at times but with enough coming from leftfield to make it interesting. The narrative follows Burke and Hare, the killers, and has them as the 'heroes' of the piece. I liked the fact that we were being asked to side with the bad guys, rather than the usual tale of good vs evil. That isn't the problem though, it's the tone of the film, and more specifically the comedy that I take issue with. There are some nice dark comic touches as our heroes try to become murderers and have varying levels of success. But then Landis resorts to broad slapstick comedy and a whole host of lines that just don't cut the mustard. I did chuckle a few times, but this was mostly to do with Pegg's delivery rather than anything else. He could read the back of a cornflakes box and make it funny. Serkis is annoying, and barely trying, for the vast majority of his time on screen, Curry and Wilkinson are good fun, Fisher does well and is likeable, but the best turn in the film has to go to little Ronnie Corbett. He's not brilliant by any stretch of the imagination, but he is a laugh and is never dull.

It all felt a little diluted...the true events should have given Landis and the writing team plenty to harvest, both in terms of comedy and interesting characters. Instead, the film relies on Simon Pegg's facial expressions and the noise of breaking bones for the majority of it's comedy, rather than the potential in the story of two Irish immigrants and the combination of the business theory of supply and demand and murder. The characters are two-dimensional at best, there solely to fall over or say funny things, which is a shame because the ending is braver than the rest of the film leaves you expecting and it would have had at least a bit of emotional impact if some care was made with creating characters instead of cardboard cut outs. This is made all the more frustrating when you consider that an American Werewolf in London is still one of the finest examples of doing this sort of thing properly. It makes me think it's more to do with laziness rather than anything else.

Massively disappointing as a Landis fan, a Pegg fan and a cinema fan. Worth a look though for Ronnie Corbett, and it's a shame that the best line of the film is used in the trailer.