Don Hemingway
Special Presentation
Director: Richard Shepard
Jude Law delivers the best performance of his career as a boorish, loutish, foul mouthed, just released from prison London area safe cracker, but the film built around him isn’t even handed enough to do his work justice.
It’s a choppy and episodic look at the titular career criminal hanging out with his one-handed best friend (Richard E. Grant at his most deadpan), and initially trying to get compensated for taking the fall on a botched job from a crazed Russian money man (Demian Bichir). When that fails, he tries to find a way back into the safecracking game and looks to make up for lost time with the daughter he never got to see grow up.
Law (sporting Lemmy Kilmister’s facial hair and a gold tooth) tears up the scenery and rips new assholes for the game supporting cast around him (including Attack the Block’s Jumayn Hunter as a new school gangsta with an axe to grind), making the film a delight to watch. Unfortunately, Shepard (The Matador, The Hunting Party) never makes any of the characters rise above simple sketches that can transcend the film’s already overly episodic and freewheeling nature. It comes across as snippets from episodes of something that would make for a better TV series than a film. Also, a late film lapse into precociousness rings false and far too convenient in light of everything that came before it.
Screens
Saturday, September 14th, 11:00am, Visa Screening Room (Elgin)
