Barney is a deeply sad character, one who life has passed by without any great affection ever being lavished on him, and Carlyle portrays him sympathetically but realistically. He’s not an unheralded saint but a flawed and spineless man who still comes across as unfortunate. As a barber, all he’s ever wanted is to cut people’s hair by the window, but due to his complete absence of patter it’s not to be. His Mum (Emma Thompson, clearly having a great time playing a domineering Glaswegian matriarch) hates him, and the only friend he has is Charlie (Brian Pettifer) although this seems to be more out of mutual pity than any actual fondness. Barney’s boss Wullie (Stephen McCole, who you might remember from Rushmore) is trying to get rid of him and everyone else regards him with a mix of pity and scorn. As we see Barney reach new lows, we also get gradually clued into the ongoing hunt for a serial killer who keeps sending the police body parts. Initially this is jarringly spliced in with the introductory montage, and isn’t explained until later. The officers in charge of the case are Ray Winstone and Kevin Guthrie (Sunshine On Leith) as Holdall and MacPherson, who have a rivalry with DIs Robertson and Jobson (Ashley Jensen and Sam Robertson) and an unsympathetic Chief Superintendent (Tom Courtenay). First of all: well done to whoever made the prosthetics for the various severed limbs and appendages. I can’t wait to see the props turn up on film memorabilia sites. Barney ultimately becomes mixed up in the murder case through a combination of meekness, bad luck, and incompetence, and as such acts incredibly suspiciously when the police come calling. The main strengths of the film are the increasingly desperate lengths Barney goes to in order to not be arrested as a serial killer, as these are inevitably total mince, and the film mines enough decent laughs from its setup to succeed as a comedy. It’s not consistently hilarious, but it’s solid enough, and manages to get some big laughs from something as innocuous as describing the size of kitchen appliances. It also looks great, borrowing freely from Western imagery and The Third Man references, and kudos to whoever lensed the shot of the Barrowlands from out front. Fabian Wagner (Game Of Thrones, Sherlock) makes the shot choices look great, even if the homages give it a slightly inconsistent visual style. Where the film falls down is in not making that extra leap, standing on its own two feet. It’s a first go as a director, so it’s not a total shock that it feels like a first step, wearing its influences on its sleeve. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
