michael wright

Flawed remake. Performers other than the main character look lost with their hesitant Famous Five dialogue and the decision to shoot 4:3 is a mistake, far from confining the characters it leads to un motivated cutting between characters and too much head space in the frame. There's plenty of wide angle close ups which look hideous in the 4:3 framing. The main flaw however is 'who's story is it?' Bill is in a coffin (which has a picture on top of it so we know it's him - very unlikely UK 1950's) by the mid point, then it's up to Bill in flashback and the minor characters to fumble through. Slow is fine, but some inept moments such as why (and what) does he give to the character in Brighton before the night out? Morphine? Any chance of a close up? Did the doctor give him this? Missed that. In the end there's the young office assistant and a random copper musing over how great the guy was. It's fine spending 85 minutes struggling to communicate but in the end you have to come to some conclusion and say something.