***
Cast: David Thewlis, Laura Fraser, Robert Lindsay, Rachel Griffiths.
Director: David Caffrey
Rating: M
Reviewer: Peter Calder
Hard to credit it, really, but Thewlis hasn't had a lead role since his Cannes-conquering turn as the poetry-spouting and blisteringly nihilistic Johnny in Mike Leigh's Naked in 1993. Instead he's languished in supporting roles in
Hollywood with other stars -- including Brando and Dennis Quaid -- who also should have known better.
Mark this down as a return to form for the man with the crooked teeth. He plays Dan Starkey, a satirical columnist with a Belfast evening paper in a notional near future when a politically independent Northern Ireland is about to elect its first Prime Minister.
A confirmed philanderer and drunkard, he is caught by his wife in the arms of an attractive young arts student (Fraser). But when she is murdered -- uttering the words "divorce Jack" before expiring in his arms -- he's pitched into a mystery in which a lot more than his marriage is on the line.
The snappy script (sample: "Are you flirting with the wife of the next Prime Minister?" "That depends how the vote goes") serves up hilarity as profane as one would expect from the Irish, and the offhand, even dismissive treatment of the Troubles -- not to mention quite a lot of casually deployed violence -- may offend some sensibilities.
And certainly there are times when director Caffrey and writer Colin Bateman, who adapts his own novel, conjure up a rather uneasy blend of farce, romance, thriller and political satire.
But it's all so hugely good-natured and entertaining that it's easy to forgive its flaws -- even the fistful of implausibilities like Starkey's escape from a house under SAS siege (he jumps out the window). Thewlis, warming to his task with a relish we've not yet been allowed to see, is an utterly engaging rogue who, by sheer force of character, d
rags the film through its flat spots.
Most of those, it must be said, feature Griffiths (Muriel's hellraising mate in Muriel's Wedding whose role seems largely superfluous) and the ending asks us to take everything a lot more seriously than the film has taken itself. But the whole affair is a an excellent diversion for those with the stomach for it.
