Friday 19 January 2007

Blackball

We've been putting off watching Blackball for a while, after reading some pretty bad reviews of it at the time of it's release. Let's face it, just how funny can a comedy about crown green bowling be ?

Well, pretty amusing really. We were expecting a badly directed, slapstick farce and what director Mel Smith has provided is a fairly clever satire on the "sexing up" of sports, and the need of sports program directors to constantly inundate us with graphics, facts and figures. All that said, it's quite predicatable, there are a few slapslick moments and it's not uproariously funny throughout, but overall it's worth a watch.

Vince Vaughan shines as the agent of the rebel bowler Paul Kaye, and the ancient British comedy stalwart Bernard Cribbins also puts in a good performance. Add to this Alice Evans as the eye candy, Johnny Vegas finding his role as a loud, drunken, Mancunian quite easy to get to grips with (method acting at it's extreme) and minor/cameo roles for Josie D'Arby, Mark Little, David Schneider, Vic Reeves, Tony Slattery & Imelda Staunton and you have quite an impressive line-up, which Mel Smith puts to good use.

In summary, Blackball is far from the best comedy film ever, but it's far from the worst and was a pleasant surprise.

3 comments:

Candi said...

You are a writer! This movie review is excellent. Were you ever a writer of any sort?

Shauneh said...

*blushes and laughs*

No, but I am better at writing than I am at talking ;-)

stalker said...

This film isnt about crown green bowls. Its rink bowls, hense the all white outfits and snooty folk!