It’s so hard to avoid not being more than a tad suspicious when some bright spark decides to remark a classic film noir, esp. when they turn out to be such insipid copies of the original. Think the stunning ‘Plein Soliel’ turned into ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’. Remember? I rest my case!
So I was more than a little concerned when I read that writer Rowan Joffe, on a high after his very successful screenplays for ‘Control’ & ‘The American’, chose to adapt Graham Greene’s classic novel ‘Brighton Rock’ for his movie-directing debut. For the 1947 movie Greene co-wrote the screenplay with none other than Terrance Rattigan, and with Richard Attenborough giving a breakout performance it is treasured Brit movie.
Joffe has transposed this story of small league gangsters in this seaside town from the 1930’s to the mid 1960’s and enhanced the period piece by invoking the social unrest between the youth factions of Mods and Rockers of the time. Brighton Rock is a great wee story about a young socio-path Pinkie who is hell-bent on clawing his way to becoming the boss of one of the crime gangs who are running the town. Trying to cover his tracks on a couple of bungled murders and exerting his own eye for an eye justice, he crosses swords with both Mr. Colleioni … the local Mr. Big … and the police. Pinkie’s one ace is the meek impressionable waitress Rose who is an inadvertent witness. and he manipulates her affections to keep her quiet. It is however Rose, and her unconditional devotion, that ends up putting their lives at risk.
R.T.V. We Brits do excel at period pieces and this is no exception. An exhilarating fast paced drama that is an impressive directing debut. Sam Riley, who we first really noticed on our screens as as a superb Ian Curtis in ‘Control’, is a pitch-perfect Pinkie with his scar and scowl and has a real edge that nice Dickie Attenborough never had. And what a delight young Andrea Riseborough is as Rose .. I loved the one scene where she hollered out the top of her voice, totally out of character ‘ I Wanna Be Bad!’ Me too.
Such a pity these two young leads were so poorly served by Helen Mirren, who I thought could never do wrong, but was so uncomfortably miscast as a 50 year old Restaurant Manager/Really-A-Good-Woman, and John Hurt, who was indescribably bad as a Turf Accountant/Bookmaker.
Even so, I still think this is on my ‘un-missable’ list. And have I changed my minds about re-makes? I have to confess that I need to re-watch the 1947 movie again as I don’t remember all the details that much. Trouble is I may have difficulty doing so back in Miami as the movie was only released for a couple of weeks in the US as recently as 2007 (re-titled ‘Young Scarface’). Why? I have absolutely no idea.
