'Filth' review by Captain Raptor
2013 has been a really good year if you're a fan of James-McAvoy-starring-crime-dramas; Trance, Welcome to the Punch, and now an adaption of Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh's novel Filth, a tale of police corruption in Edinburgh, allowing McAvoy to drop the mockney accent he's been practicing this year. It's a lovely story about a man working hard to try and win back his family's love at Christmas (by using manipulation, adultery, violence and any other nefarious means he deems necessary).
Right off the bat, the important thing to understand is that Filth is dark. Relentlessly dark. Pitch black, really. The usually pretty and charming McAvoy plays Bruce Robertson, a psychopathic perverted coked-up bigoted back-stabber, who just so happens to be one of Edinburgh's top policemen. The rest of the cast are all on perfectly good form (in particular Joanne Froggatt's trembling widow and Eddie Marsan's nebbish accountant) but Filth really is McAvoy's show. He gives a career performance, flitting back and forth between leering bully and terrified lunatic with complete ease, and in his saner moments hitting every comedic note as he smoothly corrupts and manipulates everybody who surrounds him. There's some excellent work visible by writer/director Jon S Baird - a fantastic sequence comes midway through the film where Bruce goes on a sex and drug fuelled nightmare in Berlin and it's shot on some terribly low definition cameras, capturing the turmoil, mind games and schizophrenia of a bad trip as Bruce stumbles about amongst glaring neon lights. The script is full of some fantastic monologues, such as the Chief of Police explaining why he couldn't possibly promote a gay man or Bruce sizing up his opponents and internally weighing up the odds that he'll defeat them, but it's the situations rather than the words that really deal out the laughs.
Filth's got a fantastic story to tell - not just because it covers pretty much every taboo you can think of (underage sex, Hitler, the Masons and erotic asphyxiation all come under the radar to name but four), but it's a wonderful character arc of a nasty, crazy man getting nastier and crazier by the day. Bruce Robertson is one of the most well-rounded and intricately written antiheroes that I've ever seen, and it's a testament to McAvoy's talents that he managed to make me care even a little about a man who by all rights I should find totally repugnant. The intensity of the film is remarkable; not a minute goes by without something shocking or attention-grabbing taking or just cinematically powerful place. Filth isn't flawless: despite an adequate performance I feel that Jamie Bell was miscast, and there's a few too many subplots that are never concluded, but in a film where even the soundtrack can have such a huge (if momentary) impact on the audience's feelings (the cover version of Radiohead's Creep towards the end gave me chills, and cheerily playing Love Really Hurts Without You over the end credits of such a morbid film is stroke of genius) then any complaints really fall by the wayside.
So there you have it: a subversive powerhouse of a drama with a wonderfully twisted sense of humour and one of the finest lead performances I've seen in a long time. Filth is absolutely fantastic, it's intense, it's hilarious, it's moving, it's harrowing and at a few points even frightening. A strong contender for best film of the year. It's not for the faint-hearted or the easily offended, but barring that Filth is one of the few films I would genuinely describe as a must-see.
Filth's got a fantastic story to tell - not just because it covers pretty much every taboo you can think of (underage sex, Hitler, the Masons and erotic asphyxiation all come under the radar to name but four), but it's a wonderful character arc of a nasty, crazy man getting nastier and crazier by the day. Bruce Robertson is one of the most well-rounded and intricately written antiheroes that I've ever seen, and it's a testament to McAvoy's talents that he managed to make me care even a little about a man who by all rights I should find totally repugnant. The intensity of the film is remarkable; not a minute goes by without something shocking or attention-grabbing taking or just cinematically powerful place. Filth isn't flawless: despite an adequate performance I feel that Jamie Bell was miscast, and there's a few too many subplots that are never concluded, but in a film where even the soundtrack can have such a huge (if momentary) impact on the audience's feelings (the cover version of Radiohead's Creep towards the end gave me chills, and cheerily playing Love Really Hurts Without You over the end credits of such a morbid film is stroke of genius) then any complaints really fall by the wayside.
So there you have it: a subversive powerhouse of a drama with a wonderfully twisted sense of humour and one of the finest lead performances I've seen in a long time. Filth is absolutely fantastic, it's intense, it's hilarious, it's moving, it's harrowing and at a few points even frightening. A strong contender for best film of the year. It's not for the faint-hearted or the easily offended, but barring that Filth is one of the few films I would genuinely describe as a must-see.
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