![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Movie review: Mindhorn
Nov. 15th, 2017 05:11 pmMindhorn
Dir. Sean Foley, 2016)
I am going to be totally honest with you up front: Alexx and I almost died laughing watching this movie, for reasons which will become clear, but I'm pretty certain we saw a different version of the movie than most people will experience, so this isn't so much a review as a demonstration of how stories can metamorphosize from being the story the writer sets out to tell and into something unexpected and personal on the part of the individual experiencing that story.
The movie features Richard Thorncroft (Julian Barratt, who was also a co-writer), a washed-up British actor who starred in a once popular but now forgotten '80s detective TV show. When the police call him in to help them catch a murderer who is obsessed with his old show, Thorncroft sees a PR opportunity and a way to revive his career.
However, once he returns to the Isle of Man, which is the scene of the murder and also the location where his old TV show was filmed, Thorncroft experiences one humiliation after another as he is confronted with all the people he screwed over while he was a star.
Okay, that part is kind of funny in a Hot Fuzz sort of way, but it is predictible and conforms to expectations.
What I wasn't expecting was that the suspected murderer turns out to be a goofy but adorable fan who has internalized Thorncroft's old show and sees himself as a sidekick assisting Mindhorn in pursuit of truth and justice.
And his superhero persona is named The Kestrel.
Aww-awk!
That is the battle cry of the Kestrel.
Yes, I know, it made me twitch the first few times I heard it, too.
There's also a silly costume and much ludicrous arm flapping accompanying every Aww-awk!
But really, Russell Tobey, the actor who plays the Kestrel, manages to infuse the character with a lot of fanboy faith that his hero really is brave and noble, and so Thorncroft finds himself awk-wardly (sorry--no, not really) attempting, for the first time in his life, to live up to someone else's expectations.
And, somehow, every repetition of Aww-awk! became funnier and funnier.
( spoiler and more below the cut )
Dir. Sean Foley, 2016)
I am going to be totally honest with you up front: Alexx and I almost died laughing watching this movie, for reasons which will become clear, but I'm pretty certain we saw a different version of the movie than most people will experience, so this isn't so much a review as a demonstration of how stories can metamorphosize from being the story the writer sets out to tell and into something unexpected and personal on the part of the individual experiencing that story.
The movie features Richard Thorncroft (Julian Barratt, who was also a co-writer), a washed-up British actor who starred in a once popular but now forgotten '80s detective TV show. When the police call him in to help them catch a murderer who is obsessed with his old show, Thorncroft sees a PR opportunity and a way to revive his career.
However, once he returns to the Isle of Man, which is the scene of the murder and also the location where his old TV show was filmed, Thorncroft experiences one humiliation after another as he is confronted with all the people he screwed over while he was a star.
Okay, that part is kind of funny in a Hot Fuzz sort of way, but it is predictible and conforms to expectations.
What I wasn't expecting was that the suspected murderer turns out to be a goofy but adorable fan who has internalized Thorncroft's old show and sees himself as a sidekick assisting Mindhorn in pursuit of truth and justice.
And his superhero persona is named The Kestrel.
Aww-awk!
That is the battle cry of the Kestrel.
Yes, I know, it made me twitch the first few times I heard it, too.
There's also a silly costume and much ludicrous arm flapping accompanying every Aww-awk!
But really, Russell Tobey, the actor who plays the Kestrel, manages to infuse the character with a lot of fanboy faith that his hero really is brave and noble, and so Thorncroft finds himself awk-wardly (sorry--no, not really) attempting, for the first time in his life, to live up to someone else's expectations.
And, somehow, every repetition of Aww-awk! became funnier and funnier.
( spoiler and more below the cut )
