rbaxter-2 Reviews

Five Days (2007–2010)

A waste of time

[1/10 · 9 March 2010]

I cannot believe that I wasted five hours of my life on this rubbish. The previous five day offering by this author was highly enjoyable and I was really looking forward to this. But most of the dialogue was completely incomprehensible. Suranne Jones was the principal culprit since she either mumbled or gabbled her lines, but most of the rest of the cast followed her example. Notable exceptions were Bernard Hill and Anne Reid, old stagers whose diction was exemplary. Do producers not listen to productions before they are aired to make sure the dialogue is audible? As a result I suppose I lost track of what was going on, and since the original plot line seemed to metamorphose into to the standard them-and-us thing between Muslims and the rest I soon lost interest. The ending was a complete anti-climax. A complete dud.

The Producers (1967)

A complete dud

[1/10 · 13 June 2007]

I saw the 2005 remake of this last year and thoroughly enjoyed it; but so many reviewers said it was not a patch on the original I have been trying to see that as well to compare the two. At last I have managed it and have to say that I sat leaden-faced through the entire movie. I could not believe that any so-called comedy could be that unfunny. Zero Mostel shouted hysterically with frenetic gestures, obviously thinking that he was being extremely funny when he was nothing of the sort. As for the famed Gene Wilder all I can say is that he had nothing of the subtlety that Matthew Broderick brought to the role, though at least he was not as appallingly irritating as Mostel. Scenes referred to by previous reviewers as classics of comedy were to me just noisy and childish. It was interesting that the original was much shorter than the remake, but it seemed about twice as long. I only just managed to sit through it all. A complete dud.

Convict 99 (1938)

Does not wear well

[21 August 2004]

I had ordered the marvelous Oh Mr Porter from my DVD rental firm and was sent Convict 99 by mistake. This is not a patch on Oh Mr Porter; indeed I found it alternately boring and pathetically unfunny. It might have been a hoot in 1938, but it has not worn well. The backchat between Will Hay, Moore Marriott and Graham Moffat, hilarious in Oh Mr Porter, is here irritating and totally unfunny. The story is, of course, completely unbelievable, but that doesn't matter if the situations are comic, or the dialogue amusing. I just thought the whole thing a total waste of time. I'm trying to get Oh Mr Porter to reassure myself how funny Will Hay and his team can be. A complete dud.