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David Schofield’s local chief inspector can serve as straight man to some smutty running gags while at the same time having enough presence that you can be pretty sure that the mayor’s riding his ass. Barratt is best known to British audiences for his role in The Mighty Boosh, where he played the delusional straight man, managing to ground the surreal comedy in a relatable world of human failure. I watched Mindhorn the film and would have watched Mindhorn the series – which seems like the highest compliment possible. The film could have been easily stretched from ninety minutes to the full two hours – several of the secondary characters, such as the mayor (Nicholas Farrell), and Steve Coogan’s character, Thorncroft’s acting rival Peter Eastman, weren’t afforded nearly the exploration their roles deserved. The time it has taken to craft the movie is utterly commendable and the results have paid off; despite the resemblances Richard Barncroft has to many established British comedy characters, the unique oddness of the world around him has helped make Mindhorn feel truly distinctive and genuinely hilarious throughout. It may be if you are an Office fan this will be nowhere near hard core embarrassing enough for you and if you're a big Last of the Summer Wine conservative sleepy locals react to odd-balls stuff this will be far too harsh in places, I have appreciated both and this has elements of both in it. I assure you, it does and the self-governing island is home to tailless cats and motorcycle racing! The title says it all; this movie wants to make you laugh and leave you with a smile on your face afterwards. The deluded, cocksure hero, thinking he's a hit with the ladies, but paunchy and pathetic, is a standard character. Sign up to get our cinematic goodness delivered to your inbox every weekend. – that ‘none of this is real!’, only to have to sheepishly admit the flowers he has just torn up are indeed real. Julian Barratt from The Mighty Boosh is inexhaustibly great as a past-it actor-cum-detective. Indeed, the parts of the film where Thorncroft isn’t actively playing the part of Mindhorn are some of the darkest, a portrait of failure that at times has shades of Barratt’s role as suicidal dad of a dysfunctional family in Flowers, or even his much earlier work in Nathan Barley, where he was the only sane man in the tempest of the then-rising internet media. From the above synopsis, you will likely see plenty of comparisons to Alan Partridge – something that is presumably not lost on Barratt and co-screenwriter Simon Farnaby, as they’ve even drafted Coogan in for a cameo as a Mindhorn star who gained a lucrative spin-off. Julian Barratt from The Mighty Boosh is inexhaustibly great as a past-it actor-cum-detective. amzn_assoc_title = "Find on Amazon"; Recommended. I found it great, light-hearted, rather slapstick fun, and I will enjoy seeing this again some day. Which plays seamlessly into this stuff about simulation: there are moments at which the police believe that Thorncroft’s mind has snapped, and he, like the killer, believes himself to be Mindhorn – but then, that’s why they brought him in in the first place. It is not often I get to say this in a review. We already have this email. Olly Richards. Mindhorn is the cinematic equivalent of that friend who takes forever to decide what they want to eat: chances are you'll have a good time regardless of the decision, but that doesn't make the journey there any less frustrating. Whether it’s WWE news or something from across the sea, let’s talk shop. .Didn't. Usually, a silly idea will run out of steam and become stupid. if you are too old or too young or from another planet. So I'd happily recommend it to anyone old enough to remember The Professionals. After a deranged serial killer (Russell Tovey) is on the loose in the Isle of Man, announcing he will only talk to Thorncroft in character, he is asked to resume his beloved role – something he mistakenly decides to take advantage of as a PR opportunity. Thorncroft is a gem of comedy creation – played to perfection by Barratt. That would best describe Richard Thorncraft played by Julian Barrett of The Mighty Boosh fame. Mindhorn is a hotshot detective with a robotic eye that allows him to see the truth – he drives a Miami Vice-style flash car and wears a Burt Reynolds-style moustache. Thorncroft grabs his best toupée and sets off to reclaim his glory days (which only he thought he ever had). Amiable and Moderately Amusing With a Touch of Pathos, Sort of a British Zucker Brothers-Type Thing. Twitter. 6 – 1980-2000: Handover & Second Wave, The History of Hong Kong Action Pt. I could see my house in this film, well my childhood home. Years later, he’s clinging to his meagre past glories like a post-tumble-dry sock to a pair of nylon slacks. I love the parody form and Mindhorn's purposefully cheesy devices landed with rip-roaring comedic success. The inciting incident is basically what you’d expect in a movie revival of the Mindhorn series – and in a way, that’s very much what the film is – Thorncroft is called out of semi-retirement for one last job, in this case negotiating with a murderer who refuses to talk to anyone other than the Mindhorn character. So there is the back story on wacky British comedy Mindhorn; and where those original protagonists are now and how they would react when thrown back together is the meat of the situational and sometimes slapstick comedy that ensues. It raises an occasional wry smile. For the vast majority of its running time, Mindhorn is brilliantly silly. Laughed out loud a few times watching Mindhorn! At the climax, there’s a couple of bits of trickery involving a prop gun loaded with blanks – Thorncroft eventually foils the baddy using Mindhorn’s trademark martial art ‘jinga’ and confidently states he was never in any real danger, only to discover that it was a real gun and immediately faint, still hovering in the fantasy realm and ultimately unable to cope with the real. There was no big scene that had us rolling in the isle, and no one-liner I was muttering. The ensemble aren’t exactly known for their comic chops either. amzn_assoc_linkid = "bd785d1df9bbf6e8c9acf1e46dd1de51"; Become a Member and support film journalism. A washed-up TV star comes out of retirement in this loose but very funny British comedy starring Julian Barratt of 'The Mighty Boosh'. A moderately amusing and very likable spoof of 80's action shows that doesn't attain the heights of the similar 'Galaxy Quest' and 'Hot Fuzz'; one keeps willing 'Mindhorn' to be funnier and more stylish than it ever actually is. Facebook. Will Ilja Dragunov Dethrone WALTER for the NXT UK Championship? He has been writing about film since the start of 2014, and in addition to Film Inquiry, regularly contributes to Gay Essential and The Digital Fix, with additional bylines in Film Stories, the BFI and Vague Visages. The result would have been MINDHORN. Eastman’s one big scene, though, involves Thorncroft getting into an argument with him at his too-glossy club and declaring – what else? Julian Barratt from The Mighty Boosh is inexhaustibly great as a past-it actor-cum-detective. The closest US comparison would be Kenny Powers, the former baseball legend played by Danny McBride in Eastbound and Down. Déjà vu! The tension between reality and simulation hovers under the surface of Mindhorn throughout. These days what seems to be in, in a direct reaction to that, is reconstruction – think the chumminess of the Avengers films, very consciously harking back to the days of superheroes as friendly blokes from round the neighbourhood.Mindhornstarts off very obviously deconstructed – as I say, it opens not with an actual sequence from the show Mindhorn, but with a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes proceedings. Simply a great fun and highly amusing comedy. Isle of Man detective Mindhorn lost his real eye in some brief special forces career, or some such usual drivel, and was given a special cybernetic lie detecting one by goodness knows who and then rather than using it to better mankind in special government service answering to chief Ernest Borgenine or David Doyle , as he would have in an American version he decided to return to the Isle of man and become a detective. It's very British, it's very funny and it's well worth a watch. Mindhorn is the ultimate treat for anyone who has an appreciation for ludicrous humour. The film is set on the Isle of man which in my eyes sets the plot up for greatness as the clash of action and crime with understated countryside life is always a winner for me! We all know that Richard Thorncroft is supposed to be a bore, but the film is a bit too successful at reminding us of that (although one does feel sorry for the poor oaf). Barratt plays the part with self-assured gusto and throws everything into it, even though most of the gags are inevitably on him, and the rest of the players do a good job of keeping an ostentatious streak alive throughout the piece. It’s very rare that a film can sustain silliness over feature length. ... Mindhorn’s bionic eye meant he could literally see the truth. Mindhorn is a hotshot detective with a robotic eye that allows him to see the truth – he drives a Miami Vice -style flash car and wears a Burt Reynolds-style moustache. Barratt is inexhaustible as Thorncroft, perfectly hitting the mark between pomposity and tragedy. He therefore has to be brought back to the island who's thespians and population alike he has alienated by his pretentious and high handed past behaviour in order to bring the suspect in. Mindhorn is the ultimate treat for anyone who has an appreciation for ludicrous humour. . As the film progresses to its joyously ludicrous third act, these resemblances become increasingly apparent – and yet again, the joy of the screenplay is that you only consider these comparisons after viewing. Here, he plays Richard Thorncroft, an actor who gained brief notoriety as the star of Mindhorn, a detective show with all the glamour and production-value of an NHS training video, in which he solves crimes with the aid of his bionic ‘truth-seeing eye’. But it's also charming, light hearted and frequently very funny. A suspected serial killer is convinced that Mindhorn is real and will only speak to him. So Darkplace itself comes very close to what Jean Baudrillard called a pure simulacrum, where the work is a copy of something which never existed in the first place. Not the worst movie ever, and it's less than an hour and a half long. Enough praise, on with the review. 5 – 1980: New Wave, Cinema City, Jackie Chan & John Woo, The History of Hong Kong Action Cinema Pt. It has often been pointed out that the difference between UK and US comedy is that Britain tends to find comedy in failure, with America stereotypically positioning its comedians punching down at those below in a manner designed to feel aspirational. 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