Making his directorial debut, Robert Carlyle also stars as the titular character in The Legend of Barney Thomson, a completely unremarkable Glasgow barber whose life is so devoid of any interest that he can’t even muster enough chat to keep his customers entertained while he gives them his signature cut: short back and sides.
Barney’s lack of patter sees him moved further and further down the ranks at the barbershop, with customers preferring Chris (Martin Compston) or Wullie (Stephen McCole), the owner’s son who’s looking to get Barney out of the shop altogether.
But Barney’s dull existence gets a shot in the arm when an accident leaves him with a dead body on his hands, which brings him to the attention of Holdall (Ray Winstone), an inspector investigating a serial killer who has been chopping up his victims and posting their body parts from various locations across the country.
Behind the camera for the first time, Carlyle shows a solid command of pacing and tone with enough stylistic flourishes to keep things visually interesting. A lot of the material is morbid – there’s a serial killer chopping up bodies after all – but Carlyle revels in the macabre nature of it all, not shying away from the odd shot of a severed penis or a freezer full of frozen body parts. He wrings laughs from the cack-handed violence and general ineptitude of almost every character, particularly Barney himself.
Inspector Holdall is similarly incompetent but actually seems to be on to something, though his boss (Tom Courtenay) and rival inspector (Ashley Jensen) refuse to go along with him. Despite featuring the likes of Winstone, Courtenay and Jensen, this aspect of the plot is where the film largely falls down. Everyone involved seems almost too stupid.
While Holdall is generally ham-fisted in his methods, he’s closer to cracking the case than anyone else and presents some sound, rational theories, but his superiors are too stupid to notice. The culmination of it all ends in a scene that maybe elicits a few chuckles but is almost too over the top, even in a film that’s happy to stretch the limits of plausibility.
The film’s better off when Carlyle is on screen, his nervous energy turning boring old Barney into a compelling big-screen loser. The best scenes see Barney at odds with his overbearing mother Cemolena, played by Emma Thompson in the strangest mother-son pairing since Glenn Close and Robin Williams in The World According to Garp. Though only two years older than Carlyle, the thick slabs of makeup and tobacco and lipstick-stained teeth just about make Thompson seem old enough.
Regardless, her hammy performance is a riot. Sporting a solid Scottish accent and an array of garish outfits, she dials everything up to eleven, whether it’s brow-beating Barney or organising a post-funeral dance in her high-rise flat, lacing everything with enough of a sinister undercurrent to keep us guessing as the plot progresses.
Ultimately, The Legend of Barney Thomson is a deliciously dark comedy that makes the most of its Glasgow locations and a strong cast. Carlyle finds the right balance between grisly and funny but makes a few missteps towards the end that stops the film being entirely satisfactory, but as a directorial debut, it’s an assured and promising one.
Festivals — count: 132
