Dir. John Duigan. Cast: Steve Coogan, Lena Headey, Stephen Dillane, Ben Miller, Om Puri, Steven Waddington, Emma Williams.
The Lottery's idea of which films to fund has come in for a lot of criticism, and most of that from cine-illiterate jounalists. Although this sniping has always been fairly easily disprovable, "voluntary tax" funded films like SHOOTING FISH and PHOTOGRAPHING FAERIES have been qualified rather than resounding successes. Finally though, something really excellent has emerged to deal a fatal blow to Daily Mail type sneering.
Steve Coogan is magnificent as THE PAROLE OFFICER, a shy, unassuming, unpopular worker in the probation service. His success rate of three reformed prisoners out of a thousand is not exactly wonderful, and he is in grim danger of reducing that figure to a round "zero" as circumstances force him into a daring bank robbery. The great thing about Coogan's character, Simon Garden, is that he is not a wild exaggeration of a person, such as Coogan's great TV comic personas, but a likeable, if not precisely normal comedy film hero.
Lena Headey is particularly fantastic as a "good cop", and Dillane equally
wonderful as the murderous "bad cop". The supporting cast of varied ex-cons
The story, though slight and not really worth relating here, is consistently interesting and exceedingly well told. Aussie director Duigan came up with one genuinely great film in FLIRTING and after a series of lesser works that reached its nadir with the atrocious WIDE SARGASSO SEA, it's nice to see him back on top form.
What with Bridget Jones still fresh in the memory, it seems like British comedy is doing quite nicely at the moment. Now, if only that RED DWARF movie turns out well....
Chris Denton.
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