SUNSHINE ON LEITH
Cast: Peter Mullan, Jane Horrocks, George MacKay, Kevin Guthrie, Freya Mavor

Director: Dexter Fletcher

Running time: 98 mins

Dexter Fletcher's second outing as helmsman, Sunshine on Leith is, if you can cast aside all cynical responses, a total delight. Featuring songs from the huge back catalogue of those fine bespectacled east-coast tunesmith troubadours The Proclaimers, the cast spontaneously burst into song, reclaiming that old-school genre of the hidden backing band, throughout the film.  Two army squaddies (George MacKay and Kevin Guthrie) return home from the horrors of Afghanistan to the quaint delights of life in Leith (near Edinburgh, for the geographically uninitiated) - one to the loving bosom of his family (Peter Mullan as Dad and Jane Horrocks playing Mum), with his co-hort madly in love with his mate’s sister (Freya Mavor).

 Being a Scottish musical sung in full-on dialect, I'd recommend the suspending of disbelief for the short running time, and just enjoy some of the hilarious offerings on display. These include Jason Flemying, larging it up as a dancing Scotsman in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum - itself masquerading as an Edinburgh cultural venue (Glasgow shows up on several occasions to portray its rival-down-the-M8 city), Peter Mullan graduating with honours from the Lee Marvin school of vocals and serenading his beloved Jean, and Jane Horrocks, balancing pathos and sentiment as the heartbroken matriarch. Even Charlie and Craig, the Reid siblings themselves, manage to pop up in a very amusing cameo in Hanover Street, as the ex-army boys chirp along a fine interpretation of one of the lads’ ditties.

 The songs are of course as infectious as hell, with the evergreen anthem "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" being a fine Princes Street finale. "Let’s Get Married" is given a superb pub-crowd treatment, and even if the vocals aren’t quite magnificent - the fervour, enthusiasm and vigour of everyone involved, simply has to be applauded. If you’re in dire need of a cheer-up at your local fleapit or multiplex, you won’t go wrong with some Leith sunshine – so do give it a try.


Austenland

Cast: Keri Russell, JJ Feild, Jennifer Coolidge, Bret McKenzie, Georgia King, James Callis, Jane Seymour, Ricky Whittle

Director: Jerusha Hess.

Running time: 91 minutes

Jane Austen would spin in her 200-year-old grave at this crass, confused and disjointed film made in her name. Knowing it already has the attention of the hardcore fans of her books such as "Persuasion," "Pride and Prejudice," and "Sense and Sensibility”, this disaster sets its sights on the mass audience — and fails miserably on all counts. The result is the antithesis of Austen's ethos, and even mocks it.  Keri Russell plays a woman in the image of the chaste and lovelorn Austen heroine. She lives vicariously through Austen's acutely observed tales of class and social mores and spends her holiday and her savings, at a ludicrous theme park dedicated to that world and overseen by a hopelessly over- acting Jane Seymour. It is set on a "Downton Abbey"-type estate where visitors interact with actors who play Austen archetypes, including a brigand, an aristocrat and a fussy Mr. Darcy type, (played by Tom Hiddlestone identikit lookalike) JJ Field.

However, dim Russell inadvertently purchased the budget package, so her period outfit is from the bargain basement box, and her paramour is a mere stableboy (Brett McKenzie).
Jennnifer Coolidge plays a stereotyped hideous, dense, overweight rich American with a squeaky voice, who has never read Austen, but gets all the perks.
Her over-the-top behaviour and the lurching narrative by the director Jerusha Hess — who co-wrote "Napoleon Dynamite" and adapted the screenplay of "Austenland" from a novel — turn this mess into a cinematic shambles, devoid of any sense or sensibility.
 

 F  I  L  T  H 

Cast: James McAvoy, Jamie Bell, Imogen Poots, Martin Compston, Eddie Marsan, Jim Broadbent, John Sessions, Kate Dickie, Shirley Henderson, Gary Lewis

Writer/Director:  Jon S. Baird 

Running time: 97 mins

James McAvoy storms the screen in this latest adaptation of an Irvine Welsh novel “Filth”, portraying DS Bruce Robertson, the ebullient, chem-obsessed, boozed-up, misogynist, violent plain-clothes cop in a seedy Edinburgh underworld. He’s not, however, without a mischievous, albeit malevolent charm, as he swerves his day through murder, corruption, sleaze and sex all the while aspiring through wheeling, dealing and his drink-induced Delirium Tremens (DTs) to achieve his aim of promotion to Detective Inspector within the force. The term ‘filth’ comes from the criminal world’s derogatory view of the police, as the latter’s direct use at times (highly visible here) of internal corruption and underhand activities caused an ironic distaste within the community of recalcitrant recidivists. 

The film itself is a hazily stylized miasma of drug-addled imagery and fantasy which careers wildly off-kilter at times in ludicrous tangents, but the whole piece is held together by McAvoy’s astonishing bravura turn as the damaged rozzer, whose wife and child have deserted him, causing his endlessly downward spiral. Fine work too from the ever-reliable Eddie Marsan as Robertson’s naïve civvy chum, a notable performance from the increasingly impressive Martin Compston as a punk thug, John Sessions as his bloated ‘guv’ and Gary Lewis as another on the crew also harbouring intent on the top job. Look out too for an amusing cameo from the cab driver (no spoiler here). As with all of Welsh’s source material, the transition to the screen can be very hit and miss, and “Filth” is no exception. Without the presence of the staggeringly superb principal lead, it could easily have slipped into a manic maze of mediocre nonsense.