FILTH! – It Will Make You Feel Dirty!!
In a bid to secure promotion and win back his wife and daughter a bigoted junkie cop manipulates and hallucinates his way though the festive season in Jon S. Baird’s adaption of Irvine Welsh’s novel.
Most will remember how crazy Danny Boyle’s adaptation of Welsh’s ‘Trainspotting‘ was in 1996. Jon S Baird’s version of ‘Filth‘ is crazy. There are no restrictions with this film. There is brutality, sexism, racism, drugs, bent coppers, oppression, homophobia. It is polluted with prejudice. This is unfortunately the way the world is and all this film is doing is showing you just how filthy this world can be.
James McAvoy is Bruce Robertson, a bipolar, bigoted and corrupt policeman who is in line for a promotion and will stop at nothing to get it. He is enlisted to solve a brutal murder. He feels threatened by his colleagues, including Ray Lennox (Jamie Bell). Bruce starts to try to turn his colleague against one another by stealing their wives and exposing their secrets whilst being lost in a web of deceit and downward spiral that he can no longer control.
If you have read the book, you might be disappointed that the film, doesn’t take it as far as but you get the premise of what is going on. Throughout the film you will get to revel in and laugh uncontrollably at Bruce’s outlandish bad behaviour — the sexism, the racism, the homophobia, the drink and drugs, the incredible swearing, the violence, the obscenity and sheer malevolence — but then, its your “guilty pleasure”, to the realisation that the hero is ill and suffering himself and not responsible for his actions.
Superbly acted, which means this has to get 5 stars out of 5 from me. I laughed when I wasn’t sure I should. Being Scottish I understood a bit of the slang banter that was going on and am pleased to know it’s not going to be dimmed down for any other audience.
James McAvoy has been in three of my favourite films this year; ‘Trance‘, ‘Welcome to the Punch’ and now ‘Filth‘. He has shown the ability to portray more than one character in a film; someone who is both fragile and unstable. With ‘Filth‘ he excels beyond that conveying every emotion, from bitterness, to regret, to sadness, to rage, to insanity and he expresses them extremely convincingly.
A must see!
Reviewed by Mark LEGOBear MacKenzie
