Sweeney Todd
DIR: Tim Burton • WRI: John Logan • PRO: John Logan, Laurie MacDonald, Walter F. Parkes, Richard D. Zanuck, Katterli Frauenfelder • DOP: Dariusz Wolski • ED: Chris Lebenzon • DES: Dante Ferretti • CAST: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jamie Campbell Bower, Laura Michelle Kelly, Jayne Wisener, Ed Sanders

Using humans as your meat pie fillings? Pleasant, Sweeney Todd is not. Then again, no good horror is and, as great gorefests go, Sweeney Todd rocks.

Starring Johnny Depp (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) in the title role, Tim Burton’s latest offering is a story of love, loss and ultimately bittersweet revenge.
 
Originally prosperous barber Benjamin Barker, Todd is born only upon release from prison for a crime he didn’t commit – and is hell-bent on exacting revenge on Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), the corrupt legal eagle who set him up and stole his wife Lucy (Laura Michelle Kelly) and daughter Johanna (Jayne Wisener). And what better way for a barber to get revenge than to slice and dice him with his razor-sharp blades?
 
At the suggestion of confidante and failing meat-pie maker Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), he decides that practice makes perfect and starts killing off his clients. Mrs Lovett then uses their remains as cheap meat for her pastries. As you do. So begins Todd’s descent into the (quite literally) cut-throat world of barbering. The subtext of the film is unmistakeable – that pain and suffering can turn a good man bad and that the bitter quest for revenge can lead a man to destroy not just his own kind but his very soul.
 
And all this darkness is reflected in the setting. Set in dreary London, almost exclusively in darkness, Burton’s musical horror take on the Broadway classic spews blood (albeit of the very obviously ketchup variety) and guts without reservation and is misanthropic in tone from the outset. It is this evil tone that makes the film dark and unsettling. Almost depressing, were it not for the dry humour injected throughout. Darkly comic, it is typical of Burton’s style, never fully surrendering to what has come to be expected of a given genre.
 
Bonham Carter is particularly good as the world-weary, indifferent Mrs Lovett, delivering her deadpan dialogue with perfect comic timing. Although fragile in appearance as the tough as nails pie-pusher, her performance as an actress is nothing short of stunning. Pity the same can’t be said for her stint as a singer. Plain and uninteresting, her voice is bland at best and her vocal skills fail to move the audience – which is a pity, given that the show tunes are show-stopping.
 
Melodically-challenged they may be, but you’d want to be pretty shallow to expect a melody to accompany such lyrics as ‘There's a hole in the world like a great black pit and it's filled with people who are filled with shit!’ True, you probably wouldn’t do a salsa to it but the tunes are so fitting in their ability to express the anger and bitterness that consumes Mr Todd that melody becomes secondary.
 
Speaking of Todd, Depp is excellent as the demon barber of Fleet Street. Menacing and brooding, he conveys both the plight and the suffering his character has endured to perfection. There’s also a lot to be said for his singing performance which – unlike that of previous Todd’s – refuses to simply talk the lyrics.
 
Things are lightened with Sacha Baron Cohen’s fleeting appearance as a rival barber. Colourful and charismatic in his first movie since Borat’s box-office glory, Cohen brings light to an otherwise dreary set-up and shines in his supporting role.
 
No, the movie is not going to please your granny nor is it for the faint-hearted and yes, it is gory and gruesome in parts. Most of the parts, in fact. But in the end, it’s not just a brain-draining blood fest – it’s bloody good fun. Just be warned – meat pies will never be the same again…

Eva Hogan
(Read biog here)

Rated 16 (see IFCO website for details)
Sweeney Todd is released on 25th January 2008
Sweeney Todd – Official website