Waste of time

Beautiful, moving film.

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Being Scottish, and being from Glasgow, I had to see this movie.It has the feel of a 'modern sweeney todd', in this case a bumbling and hapless accidental sweeney todd, who somehow spontaneously kills people, often just by touching them. The strange accidents that result in the deaths of his co-workers are definitely some of the least believable murders I have ever seen.All of this accomplished by Hollywood's 'New Favorite Scottish Actor', - Robert Carlyle, Bobby, who appears to be the go-to guy for a Scottish character lately (Ewan Mcgregor sighs and thanks him)Saving the day is Emma Thompson, as usual. I would rate this role by Emma as Oscar worthy and one of her best. She absolutely NAILS the old Glasgow biddy as Bobby's ma, with a wee bit o spark left in-er, and the laughs are frequent every time she is on screen and pulling off a flawless guttural lower-class Glaswegian accent.The movie begins as a dark comedy, with bumbling inspectors in not so hot pursuit of a serial killer in Glasgow that is chopping up it's victims and mailing them to loved ones. As our hapless and clutsy barber, who just seems to get people killed by accident but is not the serial killer, slowly clues in to the horror that the real killer may be his own mother, the truth about how little his mother loves him and his dubious parentage take the movie down a real depressingly dark side road we really didn't need. At this point we just want to vomit along with Bobby, and the ending has little uplift to our depressed hearts.This movie could have been so much more, the Scottish version of 'Hot Fuzz' for example. But instead of going for the laughs, like a true Glasgow bully, it smashed the beer bottle and came at us to give us a 'Glasgow Grin'. Gutted after watching this. Gutted.

Firstly, I have immense high regard for the four principal actors in this film; namely, Robert Carlyle, Ray Winstone, Tom Courtennay and Emma Thompson. Their resumes' over the years have been the envy of any aspiring actor/actress. That said, why on earth did they subscribe to this dire movie?Granted Tom Courtenay played the irascible Chief Superintendent well but I'm getting a little tired that the boss is always depicted this way. The world over film makers do the same thing, wouldn't it be refreshing if the boss was portrayed as a kind, supportive human being for once? Emma Thompson did well taking off the Glaswegian accent, Ray Winstone did well playing Ray Winstone and Robert Carlyle was just OK playing the guy where life just isn't being nice to him.For me the film lacked direction and fell between two stools, it wasn't particularly funny so at best was a very poor comedy and it certainly wasn't dark humour, so it basically fell short on all counts.Do not be seduced by the cast like I had been. Avoid.

Robert Carlyle's directional debut The Legend Of Barney Thomsen is as pitch friggin black as dark comedies get, and is a side splitting royal circus of cheekily depressing, gloriously gory antics that would make the inhabitants of Fargo run for cover. It also has the distinct flavour of Scotland on its side, every character articulating with a soup thick, snark oozing brogue that throws a devilishly funny haze over the already hilarious comic material. Carlyle plays pathetic barber Barney Thomsen, a volatile, feeble little man who's been relegated to the worst chair in the barbershop, and told what an aggravating, listless nonce he is by his colleagues ("you look like a haunted tree" his supervisor intones in dead seriousness). When they threaten to fire him, he accidentally murders his supervisor with a pair of scissors, and kicks offa blood soaked odyssey of such head banging idiocracy that one can only view this as an ultraviolent looney toons cartoon of murder and madness. Barney finds himself in way over his head and tries to excavate himself out of the dodgy situation he got himself into. There's also a serial killer on the loose in Glasgow that likes to mail body parts to the police, including a dick and a full severed human buttocks, in giddily explicit detail. He's pursued by a maniacal police detective played by Ray Winstone, who plays the role like a Christmas ham hooked up to jumper cable powered by methamphetamine. For an actor to out-crazy Robert Carlyle takes a lot of effort, but Winstone is game, pulling the cork of sanity right out for a howlingly funny piece of work. And then there's Emma Thompson. Holeee crap. I've never seen her cut loose like she does here, playing Barney's cantankerous, potty mouthed, shrivelled old walnut of a mother. She's caked in paper mâché looking makeup and gurgles forth the funniest Scottish accenting the film. You'd have to check the credits to know its Thompson having a bit of fun from her usual serious fare as this skanky, deplorable old baboon and loving every minute of it. Thrown in James Cosmo and a priceless Tom Courtney as a cynical Superintendent, and you've got a cast that's game to give their all for director Carlyle, whose already established competence in off kilter comedic acting clearly extends wonderfully behind the camera as well. A blistering powder keg to kick off 2016, and a full on blood soaked barrel of laughs.

This crime-comedy is lead actor Robert Carlyle's directorial debut. In it he plays the title character who is a late middle-aged barber living a life of humiliations who accidentally kills his boss after an argument, leading to a chain reaction of ever worsening events.Typified by distinctive on-location shooting in the east end of Glasgow, this is a pretty good effort all round. It benefits from some effective comic acting by its cast, aside from Carlyle himself the two other standouts are Ray Winstone as a cockney cop displeased to be stationed north of the border and, best of all, working under heavy make-up Emma Thompson is very convincing as Carlyle's elderly Glaswegian mother; as per usual she puts in fine work here and nails her character pretty firmly. The plot-line isn't really massively interesting to be fair and, instead, the film works as a character-driven comedy. Fortunately, the characters are, for the most part, well-drawn and the comedy is often pretty funny. Things are ultimately rounded off with a finale that is perhaps a little predictable once the basic set-up is established but for this it can be forgiven. All-in-all, while it doesn't exactly break the mould, this film is still a pretty solid bit of fun.