A Film With Me In It

Leave it to the Irish to create such a dark and twistedly funny take on Final Destination meets the saddest of all losers who has to deal with it. A Film With Me In It is the story of Mark (Mark Doherty, writer and brother of co-star David O’Doherty) and how his career as an actor is really never going to take off. This gives an ironic sense to the title of the movie, based around an actor I’ve never heard of and a lot of my readers may have never heard of. From the very beginning, Mark Doherty’s acting comes off as quiet and reclusive, mixed with a hell of a lot of timidity. Mix this with the violent actions of the film and you have one of the funniest U.K. films I’ve ever seen.

A little more about Mark, the character. He lives in a small flat with his old arsed dog, and his completely catatonic brother in a wheelchair,

Mark, the fall guy.

David (David O’Doherty, his actual brother, as I’ve already said. The O’ makes all the difference). Being an actual comedian, it’s funny to see him not be able to say a damn thing throughout the whole film. Residing with him in his small and rundown flat is his girlfriend, Sally (Amy Huberman). She’s sick of everything that needs to be repaired and basically wants to leave Mark. Living in the same building is Mark’s alcoholic and gambling addict friend, Pierce (Dylan Moran). Fulfilling his role as the stereotypical Irishman, he’ll go out and drink, try and become a playwright, and end up at the races.

This may look familiar to another film…

Mark’s apartment is a deathtrap. The lights barely work. The window to the garden is a pair of slapped knuckles waiting to happen. Everything wobbles and creaks no matter what they try and do. And their landlord, Jack (Keith Allen) refuses to help repair anything until the rent is paid. With Mark being an out of work actor, there’s not a witch’s teat in Hell that he can ever scrape up enough dough to even fix the light bulb eerily flashing in the kitchen.

And that’s where things start to become a problem. A rising body count and a lot of individuals sticking their noses in where they don’t belong causes Mark and his “accomplice” Pierce to have to create a scenario in which all of  these “sequential accidents” cannot be blamed on the two of them. With a quick wit and a lot of dark comedy that comes from body removal, these two dig themselves a grave. Can they even get out?

That silly O’Doherty doesn’t get to say a thing.

I sincerely loved this movie. I was laughing constantly at Dylan Moran’s lines of sarcastic pessimism and Mark’s inability to respond in any way. There are a lot of tragic things that happen in this movie, and its almost hard to laugh at some of them. The measures these two have to go to is well beyond absurd. It comes up to the point of downright cruel. But what the two get out of it is a great script and some ideas that could potentially make them criminals for life.

And there was such an eclectic cast in this film! There are the Doherty/O’Doherty brothers, one of whom is a comedian. The other, more of a sick joke comedian. Even Dylan Moran is a comedian. Keith Allen has done everything from music to movies, stand up, and writing. Aisling O’Sullivan is a renowned Irish actress that takes the part of the sweet small town policewoman (AKA Garda). Round that out with a sneak appearance by Jonathan Rhys Meyers and you have yourself a wonderful little cast of simple comedy.

There’s some serious criminal activity going down.

This movie is dark. And I’m talking pitch black. There’s death, dismemberment, and not a heavy tear shed for anyone but the dog. A man down on his luck and it gets so much worse is hard to watch onscreen, especially when he just takes it. You need some sort of silver lining for a character like that. Well don’t you fret, there is one. And it may be the best little shiny cloud you’ll see all year. I was thoroughly wrapped up in this movie and its characters to the point where I would give anything for them to get away with it. If you wanna know what happens, you should definitely watch this film. You might find yourself loving it as much as I did. Although, this movie wasn’t one with me in it. 9.7 out of 10.

 

 

 

And here’s a little taste of what you’re getting into.

 

One Missed Call: The Orig

By Asian horror film standards, this movie would be considered subpar. But by American standards, it had to be remade. Then again, by Japanese standards, movies like this with a semi-unbelievable plot need lots and lots of sequels. And that’s exactly what happened with this film about the consequences of not picking up your cell phone.

This movie is ingenious in its suppositions and at the same time ridiculous with its plot devices. Some unknown evil force is killing off a group of friends who have each other’s numbers in their cell phones? As a good friend, I would automatically delete all numbers off of my phone if I got the “One Missed Call” on my cell. It’s like those old chain e-mails that’ll give you bad luck if you don’t forward them to a certain amount of people. Only this one will kill you.

So the basic story doesn’t really concern specific characters, because the names and faces blur and die so frequently that one just blends into another.

Pretty freaky, right?

But by movie’s end, everything is explained and the deaths end. Although the ending may freak you out a bit (I literally thought they were shoving baby Nemo in each other’s mouths…) but it’s left up to the interpretation of the viewer, an acceptable ending for a horror movie. Although the movie explanation is something you really couldn’t expect, it screams of direct connections of Ringu and Ju-On. Perfect.

Those are some freaked out Asians...

The one thing that bothered me about this film? The One Missed Call aspect. If you don’t pick up your phone, you get a missed call and possibly voicemail. If you pick up your phone, you won’t hear how you die. It’s that simple. So PICK UP YOUR DAMN PHONE. You can say, “Haha sucka, I won’t be dying to your silly ringtone.” The ringtone by the way, freaky. And apparently now it is a staple in modern horror/pop culture as the tones you hear in haunted houses and such. That is utterly fantastic.

This just pales in comparison. Sad.

From what I remember of the remake, they explain a bit better, but the horror pales in comparison to the original. This is a common occurance in Asian horror flick remakes, and I’ve gotten used to the stereotype. Although one day, in my many fantasies of directing my own horror movie, I hope to make one that the Asian community will remake themselves. I’ll give this semi-scary film about killer technology (cliche at this point, I’d wager) a 6.6 out of 10.