Stephen Hopkins directs Jeff Bridges, Tommy Lee Jones and Suzy Amis in this crass actioner where an Irish bomber targets an old foe in Boston.

Blarney Stone Speed with Batman Forever plotting. The mad accents and up to 11 performances should have garnered this at least a cult following. Hey, Tommy Lee Jones I see you sanctioning buffoonery, ya hypocrite. On paper this should be a blast, genuinely curious as to why it’s quite so turgid and off putting. The set pieces are more ridiculous than exciting. I went to the West Ealing flea pit to see this one… maybe my last trip before they closed it down? What a shitty swan song to a fag smoke shithole. Give me a Time Machine I’d live that day again note for note.

4

Perfect Double Bill: The Devil’s Own (1997)

Terry Zwigoff directs Max Minghella, Sophia Myles and John Malkovich in this campus comedy where an art student finds themselves enrolled in a ghetto of an art college.

This wants to be a satire but I’m not sure it really has the right concentration at what it wants to lampoon. Firstly, John Water’s Pecker did this all far more jollily, with dirty affection. Secondly, the serial killer subplot distracts from what we bought a ticket for, a key sign that Clowes / Zigoff didn’t think there was enough here as a one-of-a-kind experience. Thirdly, as a quasi sequel to Ghost World (same source author, humour, attitude, style) this just proves what lightning in a bottle casting Thora, Scarlett and Steve all were. If Zwigoff just stuck to his preset objectives there is a better film here. Malkovich and Myles understand the assignment.

5

Perfect Double Bill: Pecker (1998)

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