During the 1980’s Richard Thorncroft (Julian Barrett) was known all over England as suave TV detective Mindhorn. Years after the TV show has ended, Richard still believes himself to be an absolute star while everyone else involved with the show has moved on with their lives and their careers. His only ray of hope is a call from police on the Isle of Man. A young woman has been murdered and her supposed killer says he will only speak to Mindhorn, believing he is a real person.
To stop you scratching your head, Julian Barrett is the other half of the Mighty Boosh that isn’t Noel Fielding and outside of that I honestly can’t name anything else I’ve seen him in. That aside, Mindhorn feels every bit like a movie spin off of an existing sketch or TV show. The plot of the mystery killer plays out pretty much exactly like you can guess it will from the first 15 minutes. The jokes are a mixture of clever, predictable and that awful line of cringe between ‘this is so bad I can’t watch’ and ‘this is awkwardly funny I can’t watch’. Even Kenneth Brannagh or Steve Coogan fail to offer much in their short lived appearances.
Mindhorn has me caught in the middle. From the trailers and clips I had seen, I honestly thought it was going to be terrible and had no intention in seeing it until it made an appearance as the Odeon Screen Unseen last week. Surprisingly, it ended up getting more than a few laughs out of me. Now admittedly most of it was slight chuckles but there are some pretty good quotables and one liners to be found here. Julian Barrett actually manages to make Thorncroft somewhat redeemable by the end. The problem is that the rest of it isn’t up to scratch. The plot is boring, the characters are boring and the setting in the Isle of Man makes me feel like I never want to visit the Isle of Man. It’s like a funny sketch from a TV show that’s been stretched out over 90 minutes when it deserves 30 minutes at best. You would watch it if it came on the telly, and you might give it a watch on Netflix, but it’s not worth a ticket to the cinema.
Hey Atkins! 