Mindhorn – Review

OK folks, it’s truth time. I’m going to lay some hard facts down, and you’re going to pick them up, so get ready.

If you don’t see Mindhorn then you are no better than a sea cucumber that has thrown up its guts to escape a predator, and is now hiding under a rock, waiting for them to grow back. Just like a coward.

Honestly. I really shouldn’t have to sell this film to anyone. It’s a small slice of perfection that will have you guffawing from the first frame to the final credit. The rest of this review will likely descend into something entirely different from time to time as a means of padding the word count. I would like to apologise in advance.

Written by the comedy writing duo of Julian Barratt and Simon Farnaby, and set on the Isle of Man; Barratt plays Richard Thorncroft, a washed-up TV detective from the 1980’s who is asked by the police to bring his character out of retirement to help catch a mentally unstable killer who has trouble separating fiction from reality.

The jokes fly thick and fast, with only a scant few lines that don’t contain some form of pun, double entendre or witticism. Both Barratt and Farnaby have embedded part of their soul into the script and it shines through in a glorious, almost blinding light.

Of course, it’s not just Barratt who makes the film. He is backed up by a phenomenal supporting cast including Essie Davis, Andrea Riseborough and there are even cameos from Steve Coogan and Kenneth Branagh to help take the level of awesomeness that is this film to stratospheric heights!

To be quite honest, I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel here to give you more reasons to watch this absolutely stunning film. Instead I’m going to spend the rest of my time describing the sort of person who won’t go and see it.

The Neolithic buffoon who won’t see this film is the type of person who refuses to watch films older than ten years because they just aren’t “high enough quality” and they don’t have your favourite actor in. They’re the sort of person who considers Transformers and Fast and Furious to be the epitome of wit and style. Whilst they may think they are a man (or woman) of the world, they are really little more than a closed-minded, shadow of a human who will never understand the pure, unbridled joy of discovering a diamond at the bottom of their popcorn.

Such a person will never consider the way the camera has been set up just so, to create a shock when it reveals a previously hidden character, nor will they get that tingle in the pit of their stomach when you watch a film for the third time and slowly unravel all the little “tells” that give away a character’s true motivations.

What I’m trying to say is; don’t be that person. They are a terrible excuse for a human being.

More importantly, what I’m really saying is; GO SEE MINDHORN THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY YOU GET!

It will leave a smile on your face that carries through to the next day.


Mindhorn is out 5th May! 

One thought on “Mindhorn – Review

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s