Mindhorn Review

A Bit Of A Cult

♦Tripwire gave its Contributing Writer ALASDAIR STUART the task of reviewing new British cult comedy Mindhorn…

Mindhorn
Director: Sean Foley
Stars: Essie Davis, Andrea Risborough, Steve Coogan, Julian Barratt

Richard Thorncroft’s moment in the Sun happened in the middle of the Irish Sea. He played the lead in Mindhorn, a cult ‘80s detective show set on the Isle of Man and centred on a Special Forces Operator kidnapped by the Russians and given an optical lie detector instead of one of his eyes. There was glamour. True love. Capoeira. Occasional farms. He had it at all. And he screwed up every single, solitary part of it.

Living alone in a tiny flat in London, Thorncroft is desperate to get the glory days back. Yes he’s balder, heavier and noticeably more desperate than he was but all he needs is another shot. One he gets when the Manx Police call him in. A serial killer is loose on the island and he’ll only speak to Mindhorn…

Co-written by Julian Barratt, best known for The Mighty Boosh and Simon Farnaby, best known for Horrible Histories, Mindhorn is a deeply bizarre hybrid of a movie that often works very well. Barratt, always the straight man in The Mighty Boosh but with a maniacal energy all his own, is fantastic in the lead role. His terrible, Jason King-esque strut and eternally earnest delivery is exactly the Emperor’s New Clothes Thorncroft needs to land as a character and the movie lights up every time he’s on screen. More importantly, he’s an actor and comedian with a rare gift; total emotional honesty. There’s a point towards the end of the movie where Thorncroft breaks down that shifts from funny to tragic to disturbing and back again all at once and it’s all down to Barratt. He’s playing a man who is both obsessively vain and desperate to not look in the mirror because he knows what’s there. It’s a tough role, tougher than the movie suggests at times, and Barratt lands every single second of it.

Andrea Riseborough is effortlessly great as DC Baines, one of the cops Thorncroft is ‘helping’ and has a ton of fun in the later scenes in particular. Likewise, Steve Coogan is fantastic in his cameo as Thorncroft’s old co-star, Peter Eastman. Where Thorncroft and Mindhorn both crashed and burned, Eastman and his spinoff, Windjammer are endlessly successful. It’s a neat running gag and, as someone who grew up on the Isle of Man, a perpetually rain slicker coated CSI style show on the island is an oddly attractive prospect.

Unfortunately after them the cast are progressively less well served. Co-writer Farnaby is fun as Clive Parnevik, Thorncroft’s old stuntman and rival but the character is too one note and given too much screen time. Richard McCabe as Mindhorn’s former agent is similarly over served, but has a frantic, coke addled charm to him that’s surprisingly fin. Elsewhere Nicholas Farrell’s Mayor doesn’t even warrant a name and poor Russell Tovey is reduced to yelling Kestrel noises for most of his time on screen. Although, in fairness, he has a couple of surprisingly heavy scenes that work very well.

Worst served of all though is Essie Davis. The Miss Fisher’s Mysteries and Babadook star plays Thorncroft’s co-star and former wife. Now a journalist on the island, Patricia Deville, she’s great whenever she’s given something to do. That amounts to roughly ten minutes of screen time and she’s a prize for Thorncroft and Parnevik to fight over for at least seven of those. Jessica Barden as her daughter is great too, even though she has roughly the same amount of screen time and even less to do. R

For all that though, Mindhorn ends up being surprisingly impressive. A lot of the comedy is the sort of social embarrassment horror that turns as many viewers off as it attracts but it’s never overpowering here. Barratt’s physical clowning and bluntly magical delivery mean pretty much every scene has a zinger or two. Sean Foley’s direction is spot on too and his parody of ‘80s action TV is note perfect even as his film punches it in the liver, often simultaneously.

Finally, the location works with the film in a way only British locations seem able to do. As a former resident of the Isle of Man I had great fun playing spot the location but even without time spent on the island, a viewer can appreciate both the beauty of the locations and their tiny scale. The film’s closing action sequence begins over about a hundred metres of pier and the whole thing both captures the faded seaside glamour of the Isle of Man and salutes it. The Isle of Man is to Mindhorn what Jersey was to Bergerac and that adds an extra level to many of the film’s jokes that works brilliantly.

Mindhorn is a raucously silly movie that takes its imaginary subject as seriously as he does himself. It’s uneven in places and the female roles are desperately under-served but there’s a lot of tremendously fun stuff here as well. Barratt is flat out magnificent and the simultaneous hymn to and parody of terrible British cult TV shows is note perfect. Rarely less than fun, always clever and occasionally brilliant Mindhorn is much like its leading character; hard work but worth it.

Mindhorn is out in UK cinemas from tomorrow 5 May.

Mindhorn review www.tripwiremagazine.co.uk