Just as Brendan Gleeson's character comes face to face with his mysterious double in "The Tiger's Tail", having seen the movie I am wondering if John Boorman himself has a doppelganger who directed this Hammer-style turkey. Where is the director of "Deliverance", "Point Blank" and "The General"? He's certainly not behind the camera lens in scenes where a supposedly famous property developer is charged in court with a plethora of offenses, yet his double is down the road running his property empire in his name and not even the most buffoonish of cops, judiciary, gutter press and nosy old ladies take one whit of notice; he's not present whenever Kim Cattrall speaks, her accent veering within scenes between Samantha's from SATC and Sean Connery's in "The Untouchables"; and he couldn't possibly have approved the unbelievably cozy pat and self-indulgent ending which leaves numerous significant story threads left hanging.
The film is supposed to be a commentary on the dark side of the Irish economic boom and the ham fisted manner in which its benefits have been consumed and distributed. However the dogmatic exposition of these points within numerous scenes (and an appearance by a well known pseud Irish restaurant critic) confirms the movie as being cynically and deliberately designed to appeal to mid 1980s Irish social democrats who fought for change against a right wing Catholic Church and puppet government through the medium of a liberal, self-knowing and self-reverential press. They now find that winning the battle meant also losing their prized high moral ground and glowing (self) adoration. This wasn't part of the master plan at all. They can't take the fact that economic growth for all means no one pays them a smidgen of attention or glory anymore and Boorman has made this movie especially for them.
Round this out with a padding of grizzled Irish acting washouts desperate for a paycheck and a "marriage movies and motherhood" article in a Sunday news-rag and you have what possibly is the most cynical, elitist and artistically challenged Irish movie of modern times.
The film is supposed to be a commentary on the dark side of the Irish economic boom and the ham fisted manner in which its benefits have been consumed and distributed. However the dogmatic exposition of these points within numerous scenes (and an appearance by a well known pseud Irish restaurant critic) confirms the movie as being cynically and deliberately designed to appeal to mid 1980s Irish social democrats who fought for change against a right wing Catholic Church and puppet government through the medium of a liberal, self-knowing and self-reverential press. They now find that winning the battle meant also losing their prized high moral ground and glowing (self) adoration. This wasn't part of the master plan at all. They can't take the fact that economic growth for all means no one pays them a smidgen of attention or glory anymore and Boorman has made this movie especially for them.
Round this out with a padding of grizzled Irish acting washouts desperate for a paycheck and a "marriage movies and motherhood" article in a Sunday news-rag and you have what possibly is the most cynical, elitist and artistically challenged Irish movie of modern times.