Parting Shots Details

If Michael Winner's serial killer comedy had been even vaguely amusing, it would still have been laughably bad. Instead, this variation on the Kind Hearts and Coronets theme is excruciatingly, embarrassingly awful, with every member of its august cast (including Ben Kingsley, Joanna Lumley and the late Oliver Reed) guilty of a gross error of judgement by agreeing to participate. As a dying man punishing those who've slighted him, singer Chris Rea's totally inadequate performance is made to look even more inept by a script of the smuggest sitcom variety, woefully one-dimensional direction and supremely shoddy editing (by Winner's alter ego Arnold Crust). A genuine candidate for the worst ever British picture.

An extravagant waste of talent; with a miscast lead and a leaden script, it reworks the director's Death Wish as a comedy, but isn't as funny.