The Parole Officer is Steve Coogan
comedy (he wrote and starred in this movie)
in the sense that it is about embarrassment.
Coogan's character is new, but he talks in the
same, mildly irritating way of most of his characters,
so this didn't seem all that fresh if you are
familiar with his excellent TV stuff.
The Parole Officer is an English
movie about an incompetent parole (i.e. probation)
officer who decides to blag (rob) a bank to
obtain a tape to incriminate a bent copper who
has framed him for murder. He then recruits
the only three guys on his books who have stayed
straight to help him in this hopeless crime.
Most of this movie falls flat, the romance scenes,
the squabbling between the uninspiring gang,
the fights, the ending, most of the innuendo.
This movie will leave our American friends bemused,
for much of the humour is very English (no bad
thing). But the entire cast were a missed opportunity,
they were as dull as shit. This movie needed
a minor character steal a scene or two, it needed
something to liven things up. Coogan's
humour doesn't stretch for a whole movie, he
needed to be more generous, to share the laughs
a bit.
But, wait, there are some very contrived set
scenes that had nothing to do with the plot
but are the only enjoyable parts of the movie.
Luckily there are the occasional scene of inspired
toilet humour, mild gratuitous nudity and vaguely
gross depravity to make this movie worth a watch.
If you're bored. I'm still smiling now as I
remember the a couple of scenes.
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spoilers corner
Spoilers!!!!
Warning: this box contains a movie post-mortem analysis that freely gives away important plot twists and details. If you have not yet seen this movie and intend seeing it, avoid this spoilers box until afterwards. Bookmark the page, see the movie, see if you agree with my review then write an arsy comment saying I am talking total b*ll*cks :-)
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Why did that Victor bloke decide to help
them? What was the point of the Victor
guy? Why do the guys who went straight
risk everything for nothing with such
a slim chance of getting away with it?
Why does the policewoman fall so unconvincingly
in love with an unmitigated loser? Actually,
women tend to fall for losers now I think
about it...
The movie felt obliged to repeat some
throw away lines, which smacked of desperation.
Towards the overly neat end of the movie
there are too few jokes. We are not here
to watch a robbery, we want laughs. Equally
sadly, the ending was too predictable
- and worse - it was boring. The bank
robbery was way too long. The movie makes
no sense. How come the gang know so much
about bank security? Why does Coogan suddenly
stop being such a complete loser? Nothing
was convincing. So Coogan won the girl?
Yawn. The jokes were choked off for the
sake of a seen-it-all-before ending.
There are two visual jokes of utter genius
in this movie: the dog playing tug of
war with the severed head and the puking
over the brownies. We could have used
a few more close-up shots of the disgusted,
chunder-splattered victims to maximise
the joy of that scene!
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There are no more spoilers below this
point, except maybe in any user talkback
comments.
End of spoilers corner
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Another chunder scene.
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