Burke & Hare

Trailered as something of a slapstick comedy, but billed and reviewed as a black comedy - Burke and Hare is definitely a comedy of some sort based loosely around the perpetrators of a series of murders in Edinburgh in the early 19th century. William Burke and William Hare killed people and sold their corpses to local surgeons studying anatomy. Burke was convicted and hanged, Hare testified against his accomplice and was let off for lack of evidence. Here, Simon Pegg plays Burke and Andy Serkis plays Hare. That's right, Andy Serkis doesn't just play CGI apes!

Why do film makers again and again pay so little heed to something as eminently-controllable as accents? When casting for roles do agents ever get a native speaker in as a consultant? I'm English, but while watching 'Burke & Hare' even I had difficulty listening to Isla Fisher - yep, her off Home and Away - add an Aussie twang to every 10th word of her 'Scottish' accent. Lord knows what viewers north of the border would think. Andy Serkis and Jessica Hynes weren't too bad with their Northern Irish accents (they're meant to be from Donegal, which isn't in Northern Ireland but is in the North of Ireland - if you see what I mean), while Simon Pegg had moments when he slipped. I think the cast of the film revealed what was really going on, the producers seemed to want to include as many of their mates as possible - accents be dammed. Of course I've no problem seeing Bill Bailey picking up a pay cheque and this has to be Michael Smiley's first acting job since he played cult club-tripper Tyres in Spaced - good luck to them both. But the least they could do is sort the accents out. As for Isla Fisher - all she contributes to the role here is being pretty and having red hair (both of which she does very well).

None of this would be a problem if there was a decent film to distract my attention. Sadly there's a bunch of slapstick humour and quite a lot of indifferent editing that undermines any momentum or arc. Also the script writers have subtly altered historical events to little benefit. For a start, Burke selflessly offers his own life to save Hare and his girlfriends' rather than Hare turning on him. Secondly, Burke and Hare are portrayed as loveable rogues rather than scummy murderers. That in itself would have been fine within the boundaries of a black comedy, but it's kind of ruined at the end when Simon Pegg & Bill Bailey remind us - to camera - that Burke was a really bad person who deserved what he got. The script writers seem to want their cake and eat it - they want to have all the laughs of blackly cheering a murderer on and at the same time shake their heads, wag their fingers and cheer when he's brought to justice.

Basically it's all over the place, and even coming in at 80 minutes long it's only just watchable.

Post script: So it turns out that Isla Fisher was actually born in Scotland but moved to Australia at a young age. The fact that she must have grown up with her parents' Scottish accents makes her inability to pull one off here even more disappointing.