DIR: Robert Quinn • WRI: Derek Landy • PROD: David McLoughlin, Clare Scully • CAST: Andrew Scott, Kelly Reilly, Sean McGinley, Gerard McSorley
Dead Bodies heralds a series of up-and-coming Irish films that are young, fresh and contemporary. Most are being made for relatively low budgets and a spanking new High Definition digital video format, and all have great titles.
Now, this is no slight to the talented people working their asses off in front and behind the camera, who’ve sweated through the antisocial hours, the rewrites and reshoots, temper tantrums and Acts of God, and all in the name of GETTING IT MADE.
But a good title is something else entirely. A happy accident? A cunning marketing ploy? Your significant other wants to see something down at the local multiplex. ‘What’s it called?’ is your first question. Could you really be bothered seeing Over The Edge if something called The Smiling Suicide Club was playing?
Goldfish Memory. The Halo Effect. Dead Meat. Headrush. Whether they’ll be any good or not is anyone’s guess, but the titles are spot on. Which brings us, rather circuitously, to Dead Bodies, and you’ll be gratified to hear that it does everything it says on the tin. It looks absolutely terrific, abruptly raising the bar for all those other Irish digital features coming out in the next year. There’s some flashy editing, a nifty credit sequence and a snappy (if nonsensical) tag-line: "Every situation is a grave situation."
The trouble is, despite the best efforts of the cast, Dead Bodies wants you to root for some of the most devastatingly unlikeable characters you’ll come across for some time. Slacker Tommy (Andrew Scott, Korea, Band of Brothers) accidentally kills his girlfriend and decides to hide the body, setting up a chain of events that will yadda, yadda, yadda. The story picks up after the first twenty minutes, but is promptly put down again after we are introduced to dogged policeman Sean McGinley and shady politician Gerald McSorley.
Dead Bodies is a slick and watchable little thriller, with at least one neat twist that you won’t see coming (unless Buena Vista decide to show it in the trailer… which they probably will). What’s problematic is that while one can reluctantly accept the characters as moaning assholes, that in itself is not a good enough reason to turn them into moaning homicidal assholes. Too much of the film feels like a first draft given high-octane editing and stylish visuals. Good title, though.
Jamie Hannigan.
In cinemas 25th April 2003.
