Just perfect...

Fresh and Exciting

As Good As It Gets

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Wide Open Spaces is one of the UNfunniest comedies I have ever had the misfortune to watch. Gerard Ring (Owen Roe) is a chancer of the highest order with seemingly an endless supply of failing get rich quick schemes. The latest of these being a 'Famine Theme Park'. Myles (Ardal O'Hanlon) and Austin (Ewan Bremner) are flatmates who owe people a lot of money after selling fake merchandise on e-bay and they land jobs with Ring setting up his park.Characters are introduced all over the place at random with seemingly no thought and all are idiotic. Inevitably disappear just as randomly and with little or no explanation. The dialogue is flat, boring and pointless. The plot is non-existent. The only good things about this movie are the Neil Hannon soundtrack and the fact that it's mercifully short. If you have this DVD and haven't watched it yet pop on the special features and go through them. The bits they have there are ten times better than the movie itself.

Imagine the Irish boom years never happened. Everything is run down. No-one has any actual money, everyone relying on other peoples I.O.U.s. Politicians are grubby and self serving. "Entrepreneurs" and "Developers" are loud mouthed chancers. Some of the best Irish comedians came out of the grimness of the pre-Celtic Tiger era, and now the bad times are back, Arthur Matthews obviously feels back on familiar territory.Less a conventional film, more an extended shaggy dog story. Echoes of Father Ted? They are there beneath the surface, though disconcertingly Ardal O'Hanlon has morphed from Dougal to Ted. The archetypal comedic paring, stuck together like Vladimir and Estragon, Myles is a self-aware loser, struck by the despair of his situation, unable to part himself from Austin, an innocent fool, never able to see quite how bad things have got.Owen Roe is the star attraction though, with his famine theme park, and worship of Michael O'Leary. The DVD extras where he is interviewed about the park are almost better than the film. Ted Fans will spot Father Todd Unctious and Father Cyril MacDuff in nice character rolls.Would the film have been better with more development and a bigger budget? No doubt, but that sort of thing really doesn't matter to connoisseurs of the offbeat. Those who like Father Ted for its slapstick outrageousness (more Linehan's style) will perhaps be disappointed, those who value it for its sense of place, quirkiness, and getting under the skin of deeply flawed characters are more likely to warm to this film.

Coming to this film by way of having read that Neil Hannon put some music to it, and being familiar with the Father Ted series, I had expected to see a funny light movie. I was therefore not entirely sure what to make of it at first, it being kind of slow and sombre. If it hadn't been for me wanting to hear the music I might not have finished it, as it was somewhat lacking in clear plot lines and momentum. However, I'm glad I did, because all in all it is a very enjoyable movie, with a humble sense of humour, attention to people, landscape, light and weather (think Bela Tarr, but less depressing). It may have been that seeing this movie in 3 or 4 parts and not in one continuous sitting, has given it more time to sink in and be absorbed (see 15 minutes, pause for making coffee, see some more, sleep over it, and finish on a quiet Sunday, then think about it some more). It will then possibly leave you with a melancholy longing for desolate quarries in the company of one or two acquaintances after having done nothing important but experiencing a kind of satisfactory feeling. Looking forward to a DVD with slow commentary and a making of.

i was one of six people who attended the screening, i was one of three that stayed to the end. i thought i was in the clear when the credits started rolling, but then there was more footage during them. i felt like screaming "end you bastard!"all fault can be landed at the director's feet. the cast do a fine job, the script hits the right notes, the sets are fine, but the whole thing is so, so, so bloody boring.then i realised that this was one of the most high-profile Irish films that year. then i felt so royally betrayed.just because your film has all the hallmarks of the Coen Bros, doesn't make you as good, or even comparable to the Coen Bros. Referencing Withnail & I doesn't make people find your movie as good as Withnail & I.