Sweeney Todd

Apparently Tom Hardy doesn't know what pain is.

Director: David Moore
Writer: Joshua St Johnston

This version of the story of the demon barber is a bitch to find on DVD. I don't know if it's because roughly nobody knows about it and have only ever seen it thinking it was the 2008 Tim Burton project which is pretty good but a less serious telling of the story. I've also already talked about that one so if you like when you're done with this one go look at that one, I'll leave a link at the end.

As I was saying, this is a more serious telling of the story, with Todd growing up in prison for a crime he never committed rather than being banished for having a gorgeous wife, killing as a vice rather than for revenge. It's definitely a better story, in my opinion at least. Let's get into it anyway.

So the bad points. Tom Hardy's acting when he's supposed to be in pain. I'm not 100% sure on what he's doing with his performance, when he's not in pain he does a pretty good job of playing the sweet, kind officer Matthew Payne but when the character has a bullet in his shoulder being dug out of him, he plays it off as he just bumped his baby toe on the door. The same with getting stabbed and having his throat cut, it's almost like he doesn't care, he tries to get away which is a point in his favour but barely any effort went into that. Maybe he was trying to not oversell it or something but it seems to be something he's carried off into the rest of his career. For example, in the horrifically painful The Revenant, DiCaprio cuts off Hardy's characters finger, Hardys reaction? Something along the lines of "oh shit". I'm not 100% on the exact phrase but damn did that character not care. I keep looking for the clip of the whole fight scene but all I get is the end scene once Hardy's character is dead and from that the only way I'll get a proper quote from the film is by watching the whole thing again which I'm not going to do. Maybe I will and write about it next month because the audience reaction was pretty interesting and I'd like to talk about it. Back to my point, Tom Hardy can't act as if he's in pain, I've gone on for too long with it, next point.

At one point, Tood (Ray Winstone) is telling Mrs Lovett (Essie Davis) what happened to his mother and how he felt when she died. It's a beautifully done scene and fairly relatable if you've had a sick loved one who has passed. It's quite moving and almost brought a tear to my eye but apparently, the story served as some sort of aphrodisiac for the recently widdowed Mrs Lovett as she climbs on top of Todd kissing him passionatey until they both hit the floor and he revolts in sickness away from her. I don't know what it is about sick, dying mothers in film but in this case, it's to serve a sexual purpose rather than to develop a connection between both the characters who are speaking, and the audience. "Develop a connection" probably wasn't the right choice of words for this scene but whatever.

Finishing off my bad points, Todd's father is a dickhole character. He really is, he gets his son locked up for a crime he never committed and then shows up 20+ years later, demanding a shave then comes back and blackmails his son once he finds out what he's been doing. I suppose it fits with the character and the actor David Bradley does a fine job of playing a drunk. Eventually, Todd cuts out his father's tongue while the man is passed out drunk. I have no problem with the act itself. It's an act of self preservation after all, the man just threatened to hand you over to the police unless you pay him off, cutting out his tongue is the best way to make him suffer with it. My gripe with this, however, is that while he was passed out drunk he could have gone into schock and choked on the blood gushing from his mouth and died. He didn't and went to the police where he was asked extremely stupid questions such as Quote: "Did you lose it through sickness?" And "Did you bite it off?" I'm no expert on things like this but if he lost his tongue through sickness or from biting it off, why the hell would he go to the police? What would be the need for them if he had bitten his own tongue off? To share the story of the idiot? And how the hell do you lose just a tongue through sickness? Is there an illness which causes the tongue to drop off? I understand the police wanted to get to the bottom of the missing tongue thing but damn, don't ask stupid questions like that.

Leaving the bad and onto the good, you may know David Bradley from Hot Fuzz where he plays a farmer who's (I'm guessing) west country accent is so thick nobody can understand him, he also played Argus Filch in the Harry Potter series. It's a bit strange that both films about a man slaughtering his customers and making the town cannibals from feeding them the meat of the men he kills, has connections to a series based on an orphaned idiot wizard who learns magic at a school where the Headmaster couldn't care less about anything other than fucking with everything.

The writing here is also very good, filled with that dry British humour we all love. There's a moment where Mrs Lovett is sick and bed bound and Todd is taking care of her. Mrs Lovett is convinced she's dying, she has a fever and can feel the fires of hell licking at her already, she goes as far as to say Quote: "it's the judgement." To which Todd replies "it's a fever." as bluntly as he can. It's probably not even meant to be funny but it cracked me up.

Another thing that made me laugh was the ending, I'm gonna say this now so you can't complain later *Spoilers* because this involves the very end of the film. The ending isn't supposed to be funny, it's meant to be a character going out on their own terms, suicide is not funny no matter what the situation, but, like in Of Mice & Men it's the execution of the scene that kills me. I'll go more into that next month when I talk about it but I'm gonna stay focused on this film for once. Todd is about to be taken to his death and the prison guards are about to shave him, one of them starts and he kicks up a fuss saying if he is to die, he's to die with the best clean shave he is popular for. The guards are like "fuck it yeah, you go for it pallio, you put a blade to your neck you throat slitting murderer, we trust you to not do anything untoward" and you know what happens, he shaves, gaining the trust of the guards watching him, then cuts his throat and goes out the way he took out the innocents who came to his barber shop. The fact that these guards are so stupid is almost hilarious, I honestly doubt something like that would fly back then and I hope those guards lost their heads in place of Todd.

Finally, I love the dramatic tone the film seems to carry, by dramatic I don't mean like American soap opera dramatic where someone sneezes and it turns into a three part episode of them blowing their nose and all the severe consequences that could come from that. When I say dramatic I mean there are slight overexaggurations with things but it's still a realistic story. Think more along the lines of a docu-drama. With this being a product of the BBC the tone of the film feels less Hollywood produced and more along the lines of something serious and it definitely benefits the story.

Overall, I'm not sure which of the two Sweeney Todd films I prefer, this one would be for a chilled night in front of the tv before going to bed or something, whereas Tim Burton's version is definitely the one you put on when your friends come over for a brew and it turns into getting drunk and ordering kebabs that you know you're not gonna finish because they go cold too quick but you do it anyway because you're a creature of habit. Either way, both films are enjoyable and both are definitely worth watching.

Link to the Tim Burton version - https://somegirltalksaboutmovies.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/sweeney-todd-demon-barber-of-fleet.html

That's it from me for today, have a good day, life whatever, peace.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a criitque which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.