Killing Bono (2011)

I know I was on the fence about seeing Killing Bono and i could have simply waited for the DVD but I wanted to support Robert Sheehan. To my brethren of Misfits fans, we know that he's one of the most amazing smart-alecky characters on television, in an age where ever fictional programme has a smart-Alec character. I love this guy and i like the idea that he could go all the way. Sometimes seeing tv actors in the cinema is disturbingly jarring like watching them being fed into the meatgrinder in a big studio horror movie. But then sometimes, it's the hearty sight of a young hope playing on a bigger canvas.
Killing Bono is the generally true story of 2brothers who are wannabe rock stars except they went to school with U2. The running thread through this film is open for light interpretation but I read it as 'don't try to surpass your old schoolmates, you'll fail'. Now obviously this is a pretty interesting idea, this one of never being able to keep up with your peers and that as you see a little success, the other guy becomes 200% more successful and somehow they tone of the film never descends into melancholy (god knows i've descended into melancholy for less).
It's not great though becuase even it has a great premise it doesn't really do much with it. They go to London to get a record-deal and the film stalls on that bit after the 1st act. No this maybe the truth and all that...  but given the choice of printing the truth and the legend?... Print the legend and ALL THAT.
Like I said, I love Robert Sheehan but he's not playing to his strengths, which is not to say I think he one note but he needs to play less apathetic characters. He just seems bored, which ironically doesn't come across as apathy. I guess Ben Barnes is getting to play comedy for the first time and he's fine but it makes me wish he could have swoped with Sheehan, it would have worked so much better. But these aren't the real issues - the main problem is that this is a by-the-numbers commercial British programmer. Directed by the guy that directed The Hole and screenwritten by Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais, the word here is sterdy. It has a no fuss visual style, outside of a little discolouration to imply the past and frankly Clement and Le Frenais have been off the boil for years. Now that's not to detracts from the work they did on tv like Auf Vedersehn Pet, Porridge and The Likely Lads and I'd say they were some of the best sitcom writers this country has ever produced, in the same breath as Galton and Simpson but their film work has been crappy. The only actually funny bits come from Peter Serafiniwicz and I'm guessing much of that was ad-libbed. It's also sad that this was Pete Postlethwaite's last film, he already looks pretty unwell here but he won't be the last great actor to finish this career in some silly tut. Orson Wells last film was Transformers: The Movie...

I watched Killing Bono (2011)  at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Mother (2010)...