Once Upon A Time In The Midlands

Once Upon A Time In The Midlands is a British comedy that falls somewhere between Mike Leigh's style of social realism and The Full Monty. In fact the film falls somewhere between most things as it combines a disparate mix of elements from Ennio Morricone to bingo nights.

The interesting idea of re-locating Sergio Leone to a working-class Midlands estate is not well-developed stylistically, although John Lunn's Morricone-inspired score does help greatly in tying together Meadows' rather mild-mannered approach to a story that he co-wrote with Paul Fraser. There are some funny people-do-daft-things moments of the kind we are familiar with from Mike Leigh films like Life Is Sweet (largely supplied by the volatile Kathy Burke), Robert Carlyle (who starred in The Full Monty) is in familiar territory as charming no-gooder,Jimmy, and those familiar with Notting Hill will recognize Rhys Ifans who is equally good the hapless Dek.

On the novel side, Sarah Henderson is wonderful as the woman caught between Carlyle's dangerous charm and Dek's endearing good-nature. On the downside there are fairly dull passages and the evaporation of Jimmy's three pursuers indicates some serious production issues. So all up this lands pretty squarely in the middle ground, which is when you think about it quite appropriate.

DVD Extras: None

 

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