I saw Tyrannosaur last week, and was prompted to sign up to IMDb just to write a review of it as I feel people are overrating this film somewhat. To kick off, I'm a big fan of the film Dead Man's Shoes,which the director, Paddy Considine, co-wrote with the one and only Shane Meadows, so I was expecting something fairly special, but I couldn't help but feeling slightly let down by Tyrannosaur. There are a few things wrong with this film imo. The direction is pretty much non existent, there were hardly any distinctive visual shots or sequences, which considering that Considine has a degree in photography was a bit disappointing. Also I think that the film as a whole seemed to be a bit flabby and could've done with tighter editing to make it more concise, more seamless. Perhaps the film's strongest suit is in the writing. The characters were interesting and 3 dimensional and there were some funny scenes, especially the one's featuring Joeseph's Irish mate, and I have to say that the last twenty minutes of the film were pretty engrossing. All in all it struck me as an actor's film as oppose to a filmmaker's, the emphasis was on the characters first and foremost everything else was secondary. I've no doubt that Paddy Considine will go on to make a great film one day, as Tyrannosaur did show some promise, especially in the script, but it struck me as a film made by a director still trying to find his film-making voice, he would've perhaps been better off following the path of his good friend Shane Meadows in making a few more short films first to develop this before attempting to make a full feature film. Still, definitely worth seeing, and better than a lot of other films currently being shown at the cinema. An above average but not great film.
Review of Tyrannosaur
