Mindhorn
Director - Sean Foley
Writers - Julian Barratt and Simon Farnaby
Starring - Julian Barratt, Essie Davis, Andrea Riseborough, Simon Farnaby, Steve Coogan
"Shoes going on. Shoes on."
"Shoes going on. Shoes on."
Those are the three great comedic achievements that I was reminded of while watching Mindhorn. In this film a washed up actor living the delusional bubble of acclaim about his terrible show that ended 25 years ago (Bojack Horseman) about a fictional police detective gets a call to action to help the real police solve a real crime (The Grinder) in a small British community wherein the scope of the crime is eventually revealed to be far greater than anybody imagined through a generally comedic investigation headed by an outsider to the community (Hot Fuzz). I would love to tell you that Mindhorn lives up to the expectations created by that mess of a sentence because a movie that manages to blend those different threads together would basically be my favourite movie of all time but this one falls well short.
Richard Thorncroft (Barratt) was the star of the 80's detective series Mindhorn in which his titular character had an eye which is able to discern the truth in any situation. During filming her had a romantic relationship with his co-star Patricia Deville (Davis) and a contentious one with his stunt double Clive (Farnaby). Thorncroft thrived during this period of excess using his star power to go on drunken tirades against fellow actor in the show Peter Eastman (Coogan) and run away to Hollywood in hopes of becoming a global superstar.
Flash forward 25 years and Thorncroft is reduced to embarrassing commercial work and can't even book any auditions for anything else, only getting one when his agent mistakes him for a similarly named actor when a killer in on the Isle of Man starts making demands to talk with the character Mindhorn. Thorncroft jumps at the opportunity to raise his public profile and returns to his old stomping grounds expecting a star's welcome. Instead he is received by a police constable (Riseborough) and finds nothing as he expected it.
Thorncroft's interactions with the police aim for delusional fish out of water comedy and the jokes are largely there on paper but everything just feels hollow almost as if the entire sequence at the police station is just set-up for larger, funnier jokes-to-come-but-never-do. Instead Thorncroft bumbles around with the conviction and confidence only a failed actor can possess. In encountering all the figures from his past he finds them in various levels of success. Deville is a local reporter now married to Clive. Eastman has been starring in a spinoff of Mindhorn and is now a big star. His former producer Geoffrey (Richard McCabe) is living and working out of a rundown trailer.
The first act of this film is pretty good and while not big on laughs in generally a fairly amusing story about the faded star coming home to find most everybody moved on and being dismissed after his usefulness is expended. Unfortunately this only encompasses about 30 minutes of screentime and the writers needed another hour to sell this as a feature film and as Thorncroft lingers in town and the murder case morphs into a large conspiracy the film loses most of it's momentum.
Somewhere in these last two acts Thorncroft undergoes a redemptive arc but to be honest I wasn't aware it was happening until about halfway through. He seemingly wakes up one day and decides that's it, he's a good person now. Now, I can be all in on subtle storytelling with respect to character growth but I just didn't buy anything here. Everything about this especially falls apart in the final third when everything starts going Thorncroft's way as he inhabits his Mindhorn persona in an ironically terrible climax which attempts to be a lost episode of the series but comes across as a film student's attempt at an 80's movie.
I mentioned Hot Fuzz earlier and one of the big reasons that worked so well is that the genuine love Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have for cheesy action movies is readily apparent on screen. Every frame of that film is filled with joyous odes to classic (and not-so-classic) action films of the 80s and 90s. Sean Foley, Julian Barratt and Simon Farnaby don't appear to care about the genre they are spoofing at all. They see it as a lark and just want to have a laugh at it. Sure, cheesy 80s detective television is an easy target to laugh at but if you are attempting a climax that functions as one, you need to fully commit and lovingly embrace the genre. If you're not willing to do that, why even bother.
Schurmann Score - 5/10
Flash forward 25 years and Thorncroft is reduced to embarrassing commercial work and can't even book any auditions for anything else, only getting one when his agent mistakes him for a similarly named actor when a killer in on the Isle of Man starts making demands to talk with the character Mindhorn. Thorncroft jumps at the opportunity to raise his public profile and returns to his old stomping grounds expecting a star's welcome. Instead he is received by a police constable (Riseborough) and finds nothing as he expected it.
Thorncroft's interactions with the police aim for delusional fish out of water comedy and the jokes are largely there on paper but everything just feels hollow almost as if the entire sequence at the police station is just set-up for larger, funnier jokes-to-come-but-never-do. Instead Thorncroft bumbles around with the conviction and confidence only a failed actor can possess. In encountering all the figures from his past he finds them in various levels of success. Deville is a local reporter now married to Clive. Eastman has been starring in a spinoff of Mindhorn and is now a big star. His former producer Geoffrey (Richard McCabe) is living and working out of a rundown trailer.
The first act of this film is pretty good and while not big on laughs in generally a fairly amusing story about the faded star coming home to find most everybody moved on and being dismissed after his usefulness is expended. Unfortunately this only encompasses about 30 minutes of screentime and the writers needed another hour to sell this as a feature film and as Thorncroft lingers in town and the murder case morphs into a large conspiracy the film loses most of it's momentum.
Somewhere in these last two acts Thorncroft undergoes a redemptive arc but to be honest I wasn't aware it was happening until about halfway through. He seemingly wakes up one day and decides that's it, he's a good person now. Now, I can be all in on subtle storytelling with respect to character growth but I just didn't buy anything here. Everything about this especially falls apart in the final third when everything starts going Thorncroft's way as he inhabits his Mindhorn persona in an ironically terrible climax which attempts to be a lost episode of the series but comes across as a film student's attempt at an 80's movie.
I mentioned Hot Fuzz earlier and one of the big reasons that worked so well is that the genuine love Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have for cheesy action movies is readily apparent on screen. Every frame of that film is filled with joyous odes to classic (and not-so-classic) action films of the 80s and 90s. Sean Foley, Julian Barratt and Simon Farnaby don't appear to care about the genre they are spoofing at all. They see it as a lark and just want to have a laugh at it. Sure, cheesy 80s detective television is an easy target to laugh at but if you are attempting a climax that functions as one, you need to fully commit and lovingly embrace the genre. If you're not willing to do that, why even bother.
Schurmann Score - 5/10
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