Film Review
Issue 581, May 1999
Plunkett and Macleane review
'Film of the Month'
Stars: Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller, Liv Tyler, Ken Stott,
Michael Gambon, Alan Cumming
Director: Jake Scott
Screenplay: Robert Wade, Neal Purvis and Charles McKeown
Certificate: 15
Distributor: Polygram
Running Time: 1hr 33mins
Opening Date: April 2
As Sergio Leone's iconoclastic epics of the 1960s brought the
Western resoundingly to life, so debut director Jake Scott's
Plunkett and Macleane drags the highwayman saga screaming
into the 20th Century.
Cheerfully tossing out words like 'geezer' and assorted four-
letter insults, the dark-souled characters of this enormously
entertaining romp should make lexicographers cringe. Tough. These
geezers will utterly endear themselves tot he cinema-going public.
Yet, for all the films contemporary goal posts, it vividly captures
the grit and grime of 18th Century England, complete with mud-
slapped streets and street-prowling slappers.
Will Plunkett was a real-life highwayman, a former apothecary
(who went bankrupt), who lived by his wits and his verve. James
Macleane, his partner-in-crime, was a well-bred dandy who squandered
his inheritance and his luck on the gambling tables. With Macleane
's connections and Plunkett's wiles, they made a formidable duo and
embarked on an exceedingly lucrative career of highway robbery . . .
As the weaselly Plunkett, Robert Carlyle delivers another
memorable turn in hard-hearted villainy (remember Trainspotting
? Face?), while Miller, as the foppish Macleane, is
provided with an opportunity to display a cheeky charm, until now
denied him. Stott, last seen to best effect as Daniel Day-Lewis's d
runken crony in The Boxer, makes a vicious and terrifying
villain (during a rape scene he mutters to his victim "I like your
tears - they excite me"), while Tyler, in the somewhat undernourished
role of the Lord Chief Justice's rebellious niece, manages her
English vowels (almost) perfectly.
But it is the look of the film that really fires the imagination,
although considering that the director is the son of Ridley
(Alien, Bladerunner) Scott, it's not surprising that
he exhibits some of his father's fine eye for visuals. So, expect
a bright future for the most exciting British director since, er,
Guy Ritchie.
Crossing the cocky charm of Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two
Smoking Barrels with the blood and thunder of Elizabeth,
Plunkett and Macleane is exceedingly violent entertainment
and will delight those who have visited - and relished - the London
Dungeon and Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors.
James Cameron-Wilson
Interview with Stars of Plunkett and Macleane from Film Review
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