Filth

The works of Irvine Welsh have always tackled addiction in the most confronting ways. Filth is no different. It has all the hallmarks of an Irvine Welsh story; the snappy dialogue, the scathing commentary on Scottish life and the drugs. Oh, those drugs.

Bruce Robertson (James McAvoy) is a Detective Sergeant in the Edinburgh with high aspirations. After the murder of a Japanese student, he is offered the position of Detective Inspector if he solves the crime. Meanwhile, he sabotages the efforts of his colleagues, who are also after the position, and makes the life of his Masonic brother, Bladesey (Eddie Marsan), hell.

Underneath all the madness, Filth is a pretty funny movie. Bruce is a horrible person, but he is also charming as hell and it's easily understandable how he gets away with things that he does. This is made more apparent by McAvoy's excellent portrayal of the character. McAvoy possesses the right amount of skill to play such a character. His chemistry with the rest of the cast, in particular Marsan, is electric. Never before has there been a more reprehensible corrupt police officer portrayed on film (Harvey Keitel is still playing catch up in my book). Much like how Daniel Craig played a likeable villain before he scored the role of James Bond, I see the same future for McAvoy.

The rest of the cast did a superb job, although they were all relegated to minor characters next to the powerhouse that is Bruce Robertson. Jamie Bell (of Billy Elliott fame) did a superb job of playing rookie cop Ray Lennox, Imogen Poots is fantastic as rival detective Amanda Drummond and stalwart of British cinema, Jim Broadbent is hilarious as Dr. Rossi, who I think was supposed to be Australian, but I'm not sure.

Verdict: All in all an entertaining journey into the messed up mind of a coke addicted cop who needs some serious help. Also has a great cameo with David Soul, who was the original Hutch in the Starsky and Hutch TV series.

The World's End

The comedy team that began with the TV show Spaced, have finally finished their Blood and Ice Cream trilogy with The World's End. I hope that this will not be the last time that Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright team up, because they make such good comedies.

In The World's End, perennial loser Gary King (Pegg), is wanting to reunite his old group of friends from high school to complete a pub crawl that they failed to complete in 1990. He rousts up his friends, including his former best friend, Andy (Frost), and drives them to their hometown of Newton Haven to commence a night of drunken debauchery. The only problem is that they are all in their 40s and have lost the drive to get belligerently drunk.

Once they get back to their hometown, they realise that not is all as it seems. They slowly find out that all the people in their hometown have been replaced by robots. They continue on their crawl and try to get to the bottom of the mystery.

This film is a really fitting end to the trilogy (the other two being Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz). The film did give a feeling that it was slightly similar to the British indie comedy Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel, but I suppose that only stems from the fact that they both take place in pubs. Pegg and Frost have a great chemistry that has been built up of over a decade of working together. King is character that you almost feel sorry for, even during his most cringeworthy moments. You also feel sorry for Andy being dragged along on his exploits.

The rest of the cast are also fantastic performers. Martin Freeman (The "British" Office), Eddie Marsan (Sherlock Holmes) and Paddy Considine (The Bourne Ultimatum) play the rest of the crew that are conned into coming along. My only gripe with the movie is that these characters are not fleshed out a bit more and given some more interesting backstories. Rosamund Pike (Jack Reacher) also makes an appearance and shows that she has great comedic timing.

For the fans of the other two movies, all the recurring jokes are there, including fence jumping, Bill Nighy and Cornettos. It would be interesting to see how this movie would work as a drinking game, drinking whenever they do in the movie. But I'm not advising it, I think any normal person would die from that amount of alcohol. Also I don't think they'd let you drink in a movie theatre. Unless you're in Amsterdam.

Verdict: A great comedy for all to see, but fans of the trio will feel vindicated. Pegg, Frost and Wright are hilarious.