Under Suspicion - 1991 film review

There's more than one film called Under Suspicion, and the 1991 movie was unknown to me before it cropped up on Talking Pictures TV. The cast looked promising, so I decided to give it a go, even though a quick glance on the internet indicated that some reviewers really didn't like the movie. I'm glad I watched it, since although the script tests our suspension of disbelief to the limits, the overall style of the film is engaging.

The setting is Brighton at the end of the 1950s. Liam Neeson is Tony Aaron, an ex-cop who is struggling to earn a crust as a seedy private eye. His main source of income is divorce work. He persuades clients who want a divorce to go to a hotel room with his attractive wife (Maggie O'Neill) and then bursts into the room and photographs them in bed together. One day, things go terribly wrong. The client and his wife have been murdered.

The client turns out to have been a painter called Stasio. He'd left his wife (Alphonsia Emmanuel) for a model called Angeline (Laura San Giacomo) and his lawyer (the always reliable Stephen Moore, who sadly died a couple of years back) reveals that he'd changed his will on the day of his death, disinheriting his wife in favour of Angeline. But some evidence points to Tony as the guilty party. Can he establish his innocence? Even his closest pal (Kenneth Cranham, playing a less menacing character than usual) has his doubts.

The locations in Brighton are atmospherically portrayed and it was great to see the Portmeirion Hotel masquerading as Stasio's posh mansion. There are some unlikely developments in the plot, but the pace and acting (a prosecution barrister is played by Alex Norton, better known as Burke in Taggart) are both good. It's a sort of British version of a Chandleresque mystery, and despite its limitations, it's decent entertainment.  

Complicity - film review

Complicity is a film made as long ago as 2000; it didn't make many waves at the time of its release, despite the fact that it was based on a book by Iain Banks, but it still seems fresh and refreshingly different. In fact, it's only the snippets of technology - clunky mobile phones and computers in particular -that give the film's age away.

Cameron Colley is a young Scottish journalist whose radical political views tend to infuse everything he writes, to the detriment of his career. Cameron is played by Jonny Lee Miller - who is, I learned, the grandson of Bernard Lee, who played M in the early Bond movies - and he has a long-running affair with Yvonne, the wife of a friend; she's played by Keeley Hawes, whose performance is, as usual, compelling.

Cameron receives a series of mysterious phone tip-offs from a source who is disguising his voice. His attention is drawn to a series of gruesome deaths. There seems to be some form of link between the deaths and arms sales to Iraq, but before long, the police become involved, and Cameron himself becomes the prime suspect of the dogged detective. The cop is played by Brian Cox, and other notable cast members include Bill Paterson and Alex Norton, who was Burke in the later series of Taggart.

Never mind complicity, the storyline is complicated, and it's not always easy to understand what is going on. As the plot continues to thicken, it becomes apparent that that the murders may have some personal connection to Cameron, and his erratic past. The soundtrack is pretty good, and there is some excellent photography of superb Scottish scenery. Not the most plausible story, to be honest, but a very watchable movie. I'm surprised it's not better known.

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Little Voice

Little Voice, the 1998 movie, is not a crime film – although it features several actors very familiar in roles from crime films or TV series – but has a screenplay which illustrates the interplay between story-line and characterisation. It is based on a play written by Jim Cartwright, and I thought it a well-crafted piece of work.

Cartwright’s approach is to create vivid and memorable characters. Jane Horrocks is Little Voice, the almost mute young woman who is devoted to her late father, a fan of light music, and possesses a dazzling gift for mimicking singers such as Shirley Bassey, Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe. Her mother, played by Brenda Blethyn, is loud and tarty, and she is ‘discovered’ by a small time showbiz agent, played by Michael Caine. The cast also includes Ewan Macgregor, Alex Norton (Burke, from Taggart) and Philip Jackson (Japp, from Poirot.)

Blethyn and Caine give wildly over-the-top performances, but for the very good reason that these are called for by the way in which the screenplay is written. Cartwright’s story is straightforward, and would not work if his characters were subdued. In this respect, the demands of the story reminded me of the demands of an action thriller – with a straightforward plot, there isn’t much room for subtlety of interpretation, but the effect can be very satisfying if the performances are strong.

And the performances in Little Voice are strong. Above all, Jane Horrocks is excellent, and her singing quite superb. Apparently Cartwright wrote the original play especially for her, and I can see why. The setting, incidentally, is in Scarborough, a resort I know very well indeed. My parents first met there, and made many return trips on holiday, taking me with them year after year. I’ve not been to Scarborough for some years, but seeing the town again in Little Voice was a trip down memory lane.