The Case for Killer Haircuts

So there is this guy, and he comes back from Australia, seeking revenge through the skill of his barber's knife and a couple of killer songs.

Sweeny Todd; the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. An R16's worth of blood and darkness. Stunningly dark cinematorgraphy mixes with the sheer coolness of the cast (Johnny Depp, Alan Rickman (who plays a bad man better?), Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helen Bonham-Burton) and a couple of wicked pairs of trousers (akin to the Goblin King's in Labyrinth) to create a film that broods and exudes. But this is a musical.

And a fairly dull one at that. The full orchestra puts their heart and soul into the score, the cast perform ably, but the songs themselves (at least in my humble opinion) are fairly forgettable. Some songs do quicken the plot, but most just seem to dwell on points already well made and were now being beaten to death, when all that was needed was a quick slice to the throat. Sweeny Todd felt every minute of its two-hour plus duration.

The other problem was the "love subplot". When the aforementioned cast aren't on the screen and the two young lovebirds show up to sing their heartfelt lovesongs to each other... well, I fell asleep. Completely and utterly lacking in any chemistry or on-screen charisma (this may have been deliberate), the two love-struck youths have a story so boring not even the director decided to let us know what happens to them.

Verdict: Gorgeous to look at, but a bit taxing on the ears and patience. 3 steak pies out of 5, mainly for the superb cast.

A quick aside:

Did anyone see Theroux - America's Most Hated Family (TV1, Monday 4/2)? A documentary on one of the more extreme evangelical family, it was fascinating in its appallingness. But I have a problem in that I end up hating Louis Theroux almost as much as his subjects. It's hard to fully gauge the family as he kept asking them the same questions over and over again, and then, to their face, criticising their answers as deluded. Documentary making has changed a bit since I was a lad, but the family kept having him around so someone must have liked him. A really interesting study in how both religious extremists and liberals can both be obnoxious.