Burke & Hare

It has been a while since we've seen director John Landis make a film. But he makes a return with this very black comedy.

One of my favourite comedy sub-genres is the black comedy. It is a genre that is hard to tackle as the subject matter can usually involve things that you would not normally laugh at. One popular topic is death which is what this film is about. The story of William Burke and William Hare is one that suits the comedy genre. While I'm not sure how much of the film is true the bumbling nature of what they did is very funny. The film is funny but maybe not as hilarious as it could have been. I'm not sure if maybe some of the darker humour was removed to make the film more appealing to a larger audience. I do think it was not as dark as I'd hoped. I still found it quite amusing though.

Simon Pegg is one of my favourite actors at the moment. He is quite funny here but his humour is more deadpan rather than clown like. His buddy Andy Serkis gets to play the clown a bit more. It is so good to see the real Andy too. Isla Fisher is very funny as an actress trying to put on an all female version of 'Macbeth'. The support cast: Tom Wilkinson, Tim Curry and Jessica Hynes are very good. I also quite liked Bill Bailey's small role too.

While not the greatest black comedy ever it is still quite amusing. Definitely not for the squeamish either.