I stumbled across this filler while I was skating through the late night cable channels. Catchy title, nice star, good premise, I thought. But, what was it about? It was about nothing, boys and girls, nothing. The script had obviously been forced out of the word processor because the writer must have been on a contract to produce something. Anything. There's no emotion, no passion, no continuity (and no calf muscles!). The threadbare story is this. A group of twenty-something (no-one is going to convince me that these guys are supposed to be teenagers apart from the little guy in the bike) drop-outs, burgle to keep themselves out of work (not to support a drug addiction - as the write up says - as they hardly use 'em), they fall out with each other (wow!), go to a party (or was it a waxworks museum, I couldn't tell), shoot a guy they hardly know in the leg, Charlie Bright runs very quickly and then the closing credits come on the screen. Why did I keep watching? Hmmmm, 1) I was hoping the thing was going to get started at some point 2) I was glued to the delicious Paul Nicholls - I met him once on Old Compton Street (Soho, London) and WOOF!! is he a honey! The main flaw with this length of celluloid, is that it's a list of set pieces strung together to make a film. But as the writer wasn't really into his work, it plods with glacial vigour and is pock-marked with chasmic holes. After the black guy is burgled and finds the lads, why did he give up his chase so, well, so bloody cheerfully? How did 'Hector' get the money to buy Essex? From selling houses?! Where did their third friend clear off to? Why, if the lad was so passionate about his wife-to-be/mother of his child, weren't they seen together? Was the father of the lad who joined the army old enough to have served in the Falklands? Why, when Charlie's sat next to the girl he fancies, does he just up and walk away? What did he give the gun to his dodgy mate for? Why, after using the shooter, did they run UP a block of flats with no other way out? Why didn't the police go up and get them? Why was Phil Daniels allowed on the screen again without proper tutelage of his bottom lip? I know a lot of Saaf Landan lads have gushed about this film, but boys, is this all your life's about?
Review of Goodbye Charlie Bright
