Director: Tim Burton
Running time: 116 minutes
****
Never was a tale more Gothic, or more suited to Johnny Depp's new penchant for a bit of Cockney lingo. Depp and Burton have long ruled the roost over the
dark side of cinema's imagination, but here the combination of their niche market and a musical spectacular is sometimes so big that it threatens to burst out of the screen.
London is given Burton's painterly treatment, and Depp is comically aided by a sublimely sexy Helena Bonham Carter, but there is no taking away from the film's frontman.
As a twisted revenge for the loss of his wife to Alan Rickman's Judge Turpin, he starts cutting hair and slitting throats until he gets up close and personal with his arch-enemy.
In between times Mrs Lovett's pie shop does a roaring trade with its questionable contents, and Depp and Bonham Carter's tender romantic dance is well played out.
The only complaint, if it is one, might be that it feels very much like a straight adaptation of a musical to screen, with little inventiveness or dazzle in the cinematography.
That said, Depp's sullen beauty and twinkly eyed humour carries him through the proceedings with an appeal that is sexy and sad in equal measure.
LOCAL HERO (PG) £15.99Director: Bill Forsyth
Running time: 107 minutes
*****
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of this Scottish classic, Forsyth's finest work makes a return to the shelves after a two-year gap.
Peter Riegart plays the typically cocky hotshot American oil representative sent to the tiny Scottish village of Firness (Pennan in real life) to convince them that a buyout in return for a spanking new oil refinery is a great idea.
What he doesn't factor in, of course, is an ensemble cast that is as Scottish, charming and wise as you'd ever hope to put forward were it an Olympic sport.
Forsyth's heart-on-sleeve tribute to the legacy of Whisky Galore is there for all to see, but he does it with such panache that it is entirely forgivable.
His touch as a director is enduring, and has been much imitated since, but never surpassed.
Burt Lancaster plays the bolshy Texan oil boss behind the plot to fool the locals, but it is he who ends up being the biggest dreamer of them all, charmed by the malice-free simplicity of the locals' defiance of change.
Forsyth has been greatly missed as a Scottish filmmaker, but his career is far from over. This celebration will do for now.
The full article contains 441 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
