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NZEW Awards
NZEW NominationsNZEW WinnersReviews
Anna and the KingThree KingsGirl InterruptedBowfingerTwo HandsThe InsiderElectionThe Debt CollectorMystery AlaskaAmerican BeautyThe Talented Mr RipleyCrazy in AlabamaThe HurricaneThe BeachThe End Of The AffairSleepy HollowHouse on haunted hillThe Cider House RulesThe Green MileScream 3Mission to MarsGalaxy QuestStuart LittleThe Iron Giant|
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| The Debt Collector |
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| Starring Billy Connolly, Francesca Annis, Ken Stott |
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| In the closing moments of this bleak and sordid Scots drama, the camera pulls away from Nickie Dryden (Connolly), a man whose fall from grace is the film's story. The shot pulls back along a courtroom corridor and Connolly, marooned on a crutch in mid-frame, strives to look ... well, what? It's easy to imagine he's trying to communicate some sense of wonder and remorse, some grandly Shakespearean complexity of character. But he looks like a genial uncle dressed up for a pantomime. The moment fails to work for the same reason the film has failed. The fact that seems to have eluded a legion of producers is this: Billy Connolly can't act. Oh, sure, he made a fine fist of the starring role as Victoria's highland favourite in Mrs Brown, a quirky role which concealed the shallowness of his talent. But here, dealt a character of profoundly ambiguous moral texture, he's all at sea. So is the film, mind you. It can't make up its mind who it wants us to like and neither could I. Connolly plays a convicted loan shark and killer, busted by undercover cop Gary Keltie (Stott) in the first scene, who after 18 years in the slammer has inexplicably become a feted sculptor and a fixture on the Edinburgh social scene. But if society has forgiven Dryden, Keltie has not. He stalks Dryden, dragging his victims and their relatives to social occasions and taunting Dryden's wife for sleeping with a psychopath. It's hard not to share Keltie's loathing for Dryden (who, in the film's infinitely accommodating moral universe, is a victim rather than a lowlife scum) but Keltie is a rather nasty piece of work himself. Once you throw in a subplot involving a young punk who wants to grow up to be Dryden, it all gets as messy as a Scots sewer. * The film is paired with Accidents, a 15-minute short by local film-maker Paul Swadel which is narratively dodgy but technically dazzling and showcases a promising talent. Don't be late. |
 n.e.w@journalist.com |
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