Robert Carlyle has been a favorite actor of mine since I first saw him in TRAINSPOTTING and THE FULL MONTY. He has since appeared in dozens of films in leading and supporting roles. He currently chews scenery on ABC’s fairy tale series Once Upon a Time but is now debuting his first turn as film director with the black comedy THE LEGEND OF BARNEY THOMPSON.
First time directors don’t always get to help Oscar winning talent in their movies, but Carlyle got Emma Thompson to don prosthetics and play a foul-mouthed matriarch who loved tobody parts after she dismembers them.
THE LEGEND OF BARNEY THOMSON tells the tale of Barney (Carlyle), a hapless barber, devoid of charm and ‘patter’ as his fellow barbering brethren mockingly remind him. Barney’s mediocre, mundane life of plotting for a way up is about to be transformed, following a typically incompetent fit of pique, when he inadvertently stumbles into serial murder, and with it headlong into the trail of a grotesque series of killings gripping Glasgow. As he makes ham-fisted attempts to cover his tracks, he finds himself on the run from the bearish Detective Inspector Holdall (Winstone) and a testosterone-driven local Police task force at each others throats over the ongoing crimes. With his sanity threatening to unravel, Barney fatefully turns to his domineering, emasculating mother, the formidable Glaswegian ‘good-time girl’, Cemolina (Thompson). There’s no turning back now and the path that lies ahead for Barney may yet be littered with more murderous consequences than he could have ever anticipated.
The trailer definitely feels reminiscent of the earlier films of Danny Boyle, a friend and colleague of Carlyle’s, and that is definitely a good thing. I don’t have expectations that this is going to be a masterpiece but it definitely looks like a lot of fun. Thompson definitely looks like she is playing against type and it is always great to see her doing something unique.
THE LEGEND OF BARNEY THOMPSON debuts tonight at the Edinburgh International Film Festival before a release in U.K. theaters on July 24th. There is currently no domestic release date for the film.