A charity-shop worker misses his chance to participate in a national
talent competition and seeks revenge on those who bullied him along the
way.
Review by
Musanna Ahmed
Directed by: Nick Gillespie
Starring: Tom Meeten, Kris Marshall, Johnny Vegas, Kevin Bishop, Steve Oram, Alice
Lowe
Paul Dood's journey to self-fulfilment will involve him doing anything for
clout - he just doesn't know it yet because he’s never had a taste of
clout. The 40-something charity shop worker slash aspiring entertainer,
marvellously played by British comic multi-hyphenate Tom Meeten,
wants his enthusiasm to sing, dance and dress with glitzy glamour to mean
something. There is no greater impetus for his showbiz pursuits than his
ill mother, who is nearing the end of her life with an unspecified
timeline.
And there’s no greater materialistic desire for a child than to give back
to their parents with a nice car or a nice house. For Paul, buying a
bungalow for his mum is the endgame. His confidence in winning Britain’s
Got Talent will help him realise this goal, only it’s a struggle to even
get there thanks to a few selfish people who get in the way. He’s super
late to meet the talent show’s fictional equivalent of Simon Cowell -
comedian Kevin Bishop playing an archetypal American socialite with
his L.A. tan and perfectly coiffed hair – and his impromptu audition
behind closed doors is laughed off by the host right as his mother
suddenly passes away. Thus, he begins a quest for revenge.
The vengeance doesn’t begin until the midway mark of this 90-minute movie,
though. The first half is leisurely paced, putting the Dood family through
a series of unpleasant encounters with various characters performed by a
who’s who of British comedy talent: Johnny Vegas as a pathetic
waiter in a Chinese restaurant, Alice Lowe as a slimy clergywoman,
Steve Oram as a brutish train attendant, all soon to be targets of
Dood’s bloodthirst after they slow down his path to reaching the national
talent show. Under the guidance of a very generous director, the actors
rinse the scenes out of any possible humour to be found but ultimately,
these sequences feel a little too long.
Throughout the whole film, the main character live-streams himself to a
two-digit audience on a facsimile of Instagram, empowered by the fans who
tune in and believe his murders are nothing but compelling performance
art. There’s a point to be made here but unfortunately the presentation is
too artificial. It feels like a missed opportunity knowing that films
(such as
Ingrid Goes West,
Unfriended,
Spree) have reached the point of acutely understanding how to utilise social
media as a tool of storytelling, particularly through accurate design.
The ineffectiveness here comes from a failure to take advantage of the
aesthetic possibilities: the fake social network, designed around a ladder
system, looks and sounds more like a cheap mobile game than a pretend IG,
which it tries to be in every other way. I’m not saying it’s a
generational misplacement of technology but the soundtrack, featuring new
wavers Gary Numan, Bronski Beat and A Flock of Seagulls, is indicative of
a filmmaking team who were kids before the internet and are now grown up
and making movies. It’s perhaps low on their list of cinematic priorities
but it hurts the immersion.
Paul visualises his killing spree in an appealingly violent way and the
film proceeds by twisting the scenarios and mining them even further for
gleefully gory results. There’s terrific work done by the props department
and some of their secrets are shown in the credits when we see bloopers.
Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break does its job as a satisfying
midnight movie, but it surprises in wielding power as a feel-good flick.
Paul Dood's Deadly Lunch Break plays online at the SXSW Film Festival from March 17th to 21st.
