Blackball Reviews

This is what British Movies should be...

forget Four Weddings and the like, I belive those films are how Vyvian from 'The Young Ones' described 'The Good Life' - 'They're just a bunch of reactionary stereotypes, confirming the myth that everyone in England is a loveable middle class eccentric - and I hate them'

This seems more earthily British than many films I have seen recently. And the token American that all brit films have to have to get an American audience (in this case James Cromwell) gives a great performance (not just a great accent)

Paul Kaye gives a typical performance, he is just superb at playing this kind of character. And it's good to see Bernard Cribbins again.

The only thing wrong with this film is that it is quite formulaic in its approach. But it is still more than worth a watch, in fact being the best Mel Smith film I have seen.

I just wish sportsmen were more like this, if you have the personality just do it because you enjoy it. Not for gamesmanship or gloating at the opponent.

BTW this film also digs up the dead - twice! in the form of Tony Slattery and Mark Little. But even that can't spoil this film.

Great British flick

I laughed my way through the whole film. There aren't many films where I smile the whole way through.

Excellent cast, Paul Kaye does a good Devon accent!

A film I would recommend to my friends. Definately one for the collection!

Brill film

Really good entertainment from the start to the end. Was a bit worried that it was going to be one of those films where you see all the funny bits in the advert, but I'm glad to say there were quite a few good lines left to make you laugh.

Paul Kaye's character is just an annoying, spoilt little brat that grates you to the bone. It worked with Dennis Pennis because he was irritating celebs, but now he's just irritating everyone. This film has a great premise but Kaye along with some lazily filmed bowling sequences manage to spoil it.

like a bad tv sitcom.....

...but with added swearing. An incredibly tedious and dull plotline that you wil have no doubt worked out within the first 5 minutes leaving you with little or no reason to continue watching. The jokes are little better; Paul Kay is generally annoying and Johnny Vegas underused, the film too often relying on his belly for laughs where there are none to be had.

It also seems to be set in some bizarro alternate universe where the general public actually care about bowling (complete with mock-up front pages of The Sun) - they should have had the confidence to go the whole way and had cows armed with machine guns parachuting onto the green during matches such is its lack of anything approaching realism.

I would head towards the blackadder/office/alan partridge etc dvd's if you after some genuinely funny, uplifting and rewarding contemporary British comedy and avoid this like the plague it is.