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Mar 09, 2016 By Kyle Mullin Web Exclusive

In his directorial debut, Robert Carlyle stars as the eponymous Barney Thomson, an embittered Glasgow barber with the skeaziest, slicked-back haircut imaginable. That’s far from the only tragic irony in this sad sack’s life—he’s fired for being snippy with customers, then engages in a tussle with a fellow barber which leads to him accidentally—and absurdly—stabbing said colleague. After hiding the body, Thomson’s misfortunes quickly mount: a fearsome local detective (the ever excellent Ray Winstone) suspects Thomson of being behind a slew of other grisly murders; the barber’s abusive mother (a deplorably grating Emma Thomson) agrees to help hide his crime, only to continue berating him and taking him for granted; and his lone pal, a bumbling simpleton, is more than eager to exploit Thomson’s misery after seeing him dispose the body.

Barney Thomson is beautifully shot—the opening sequence of Thomson at work, clipping hair clipping hair that floats to the floor; the grim shots of Glasgow’s streets and its grisly grey skyline; bold closeups of Winestone’s confrontations with rival detective Ashley Jensen. There’s also number of recurring gags, some of which work (Thomson’s mother regally dropping her bags at the site of her son, to which he dutifully scurries to carry for her) and a few that don’t (a senile friend of Thomson’s mothers is depicted with a heartless poor taste). And a third act development gives the film a genuinely unpredictable plot twist. However, the movie’s relentless grimness renders the characters into caricatures, each more miserably shallow than the last.

Carlyle’s fearless devotion to that motif is commendable, but the film becomes increasingly tedious as each character schemes and abuses and wallows and wales. A climactic confrontation between Thomson and his mother in a landfill is particularly gratuitous in its grating bleakness. The gory ends that many of these characters meet can be morbidly satisfying (considering how torturous they have made the film’s running time), and the depths that they sink to frequently become amusing in their absurdity. But those bottoming outs never reach the laugh-out-loud hilarity that Carlyle seems to be tirelessly striving for. Likeable characters certainly aren’t required for a film, but they also shouldn’t be so repugnant that viewers are left hating themselves for taking the time to watch. One of the film’s later scenes shows Carlyle by a lake, attempting again and again to dispose of yet another body, going to a shop to purchase a raft, flailing to inflate it, paddling out to the water only to fall overboard with the body. It’s one of the few moments in Barney Thomson that is effectively funny. Hopefully Carlyle features more slapstick fun in his next picture. God knows this movie could have used it.

Author rating: 5/10