This Scottish-Irish co-production sees Ewen Bremner and Ardal O'Hanlon teamed up as two losers who become involved in a half-arsed scheme by a shady businessman to open up a theme park dedicated to the Great Famine.
As you may have guessed from this description it's a comedy and the script (by FATHER TED's Arthur Mathews) manages to succeed, more or less, in keeping the laughs flowing.
There are some small issues with pacing and striking a balance when it comes to the film's content. At times it seems some characters are almost forgotten about, or else are introduced and just seem to fade away, and there are moments when characters' motivations aren't the clearest.
However, steady direction by Tom Hall and, most importantly, an excellent cast with a gift for comedy ensure that even when the film does threaten to slip away there is still enough there to win over the audience. Bremner and O'Hanlon in particular have both the chemistry and the comedic delivery to get laughs where lesser acts might fail, and Owen Roe steals pretty much every scene he appears in.
It's not exactly a laugh riot - with the depressing atmosphere conjured up by both the situation and the deliberately drab photography, you're always going to have to work that little bit harder - but it does manage to be consistently amusing with a few real laugh-out-loud classic scenes. It won't have you rolling in the aisles, but the next laugh is never far away.
As you may have guessed from this description it's a comedy and the script (by FATHER TED's Arthur Mathews) manages to succeed, more or less, in keeping the laughs flowing.
There are some small issues with pacing and striking a balance when it comes to the film's content. At times it seems some characters are almost forgotten about, or else are introduced and just seem to fade away, and there are moments when characters' motivations aren't the clearest.
However, steady direction by Tom Hall and, most importantly, an excellent cast with a gift for comedy ensure that even when the film does threaten to slip away there is still enough there to win over the audience. Bremner and O'Hanlon in particular have both the chemistry and the comedic delivery to get laughs where lesser acts might fail, and Owen Roe steals pretty much every scene he appears in.
It's not exactly a laugh riot - with the depressing atmosphere conjured up by both the situation and the deliberately drab photography, you're always going to have to work that little bit harder - but it does manage to be consistently amusing with a few real laugh-out-loud classic scenes. It won't have you rolling in the aisles, but the next laugh is never far away.
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