Burke & Hare (2011)

good back-story, and good acting

Best movie of this year hands down!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

A black comedy about two 19th century grave robbers (Simong Pegg and Andy Serkis) who find a lucrative business providing cadavers for an Edinburgh medical school.There have been a few films about Burke and Hare, or inspired by the two ghouls. This, sadly, is not among the very best. With John Landis directing, you would expect more but I think he never really hits the mark. (I am glad to see him come back from his long hiatus, though.)Simon Pegg is toned down from the roles we are used to for him, and Andy Serkis never really comes into his own. Isla Fisher stands out somewhat, but only somewhat and nothing more. And then we have Tim Curry, who can make just about any film better just by showing up... and even he fails to excite me here.

Burke and Hare (2010) ** (out of 4) John Landis returned to the big screen with this black comedy about poor boys William Burke (Simon Pegg) and William Hare (Andy Serkis) who find a way to earn money by selling dead bodies to a doctor (Tom Wilkinson). Soon the duo run out of bodies to sell so they resort to killing in order to keep their business going. BURKE AND HARE was released to mixed reviews and I'm going to have to side with those who found the movie to be a major disappointment. It's strange but it really does seem as if the screenplay doesn't know if it wants to be a drama or a simple comedy but it really ends up failing on both levels. I thought the comedy aspect was the weakest thing as there just really wasn't anything funny going on. The first gag in the film deals with a doctor (played by Tim Curry) cutting off the foot of a man and then ducking out of the way to avoid blood, which of course falls on a guy behind him. This is the type of humor we're treated to and it just never worked no matter how hard the cast members are working. I think the better aspects are when the film is playing it straight and telling the story of the two grave robbers turned murderers. I think these scenes work the best and especially because of the actual look of the movie. Director Landis at least gives us some very good atmosphere and it really does feel as if the film is taking place during the actual settings. Both Pegg and Serkis are good in their parts but one wishes they were given a better screenplay to work with. The supporting cast is led by a very good Wilkinson who steals the film as usual. Curry is pretty good in his part and we also get familiar faces such as Christopher Lee, Jenny Agutter and even Ray Harryhausen. BURKE AND HARE is a good looking film with some fine performances but this just isn't enough to save the film.

Cards on the table: I think An American Werewolf in London is one of the funniest scary movies ever; one of the greatest black comedies ever; indeed, one of the greatest movies ever. Which is the main reason I found this limp, lame attempt at black comedy horror such a clunking disappointment.Burke and Hare just isn't funny. Neither is it properly 'black' or scary. What it is is boring and offensive in roughly equal measure – the former of which is quite an achievement, considering the sensational subject matter. The real Burke and Hare were by all accounts two of the most unpleasant characters you'd ever hope not to meet. They murdered 17 people, many of whom were old or infirm, for money. And I for one fail to see the humour in that.Don't get me wrong. I love a good horror comedy. I can handle as many buckets of Kensington gore as the make-up man can mix up. My personal list of favourite horror comedies would include Brain Dead; Basket Case; Reanimator, The Evil Dead; Shaun of the Dead; Theatre of Blood and Dr Terror's House of Horrors. But all those movies had wit, style and characterisation – elements sadly lacking in Burke and Hare.Now there have been lots of films about real-life serial killers, some good, some bad, some terrible. But I'm honestly struggling to think of a single one where the filmmakers actually held up the murders and their victims as objects of ridicule, played their deaths for cheap laughs (or no laughs, in this case). Just because Burke and Hare's crimes were committed a long time ago doesn't make them legitimate subjects for comedy, in my opinion.True, the movie boasts a fabulous cast. But as plenty of other reviewers have pointed out, they're all decidedly unScottish, and most of them are given nothing to say or do that makes you want to watch them. Or worse, make you care a jot about what happens to them. What Landis has forgotten, and his writers sadly never seem to have known in the first place, is that comedy, even – especially, in fact – black comedy, requires empathy from the viewer to be successful. The reason that we come away from Withnail and I feeling both elated and dejected is because we've really gotten to know those two out-of-work actors, and when they part by the bedraggled wolves in rainy Regents Park at the end, well, it's heartbreaking.I can't tell you how I felt at the end of Burke and Hare, because my wife and I switched over less than half way through and watched Million Pound Drop Live instead. And if that isn't the crowning indictment of any movie, I don't know what is.

Or Hare-brained is more like it. Have you ever heard of the expression Burking? NO? Well in this film we have it all.This film stars Simon Pegg(or Pegg-head as I like to call him). This fellow has gone down in the world. I thoroughly enjoyed Shaun Of The Dead.In this one: he stinks.This story is based on The Burke and Hare murders (also known as the West Port murders) were serial murders perpetrated in Edinburgh, Scotland, from November 1827 to 31 October 1828. The killings were attributed to Irish immigrants William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses of their 17 victims to provide material for dissection. Their purchaser was Doctor Robert Knox, a private anatomy lecturer whose students were drawn from Edinburgh Medical College. Their accomplices included Burke's mistress, Helen McDougal, and Hare's wife, Margaret Laird. From their infamous method of killing their victims has come the word "burking", meaning to purposefully smother and compress the chest of a victim, and a derived meaning, to quietly suppressBack to the film: the plot is a parody of the actual killings. Burke is shown to be a romantic in the film (as well as a man of principles), madly in love with Helen McDougal (Isla Fisher) - under the name Ginny Hawkins - a former prostitute, attempts to attract the attention of everyone in the bar by doing an extract from the William Shakespeare play Macbeth. You feel sympathetic towards Burke.The character of Hare is shown as a man who lives only for himself. He even forsakes his best friend Burke at the end of the film. In this film Hare is NOT dealt with by the mob at the end of the film. In this one: he opens his own funeral parlour.Ronny Corbett(star of the Two Ronnies BBC TV series) makes a welcome appearance. In this film he looks like a parody of Napoleon Bonaparte. Christopher Lee makes a cameo appearance as Joseph.William Burke (Simon Pegg) and William Hare (Andy Serkis) attempting to sell cheese mould which they state is growing moss. When they are found out, they flee back to an Inn owned by Hare's wife Lucky (Jessica Hynes), who states that one of their lodgers has died. Burke and Hare decide to transport the corpse to Knox. They are forced to break the corpse's spine in order to fit inside the barrel.Burke and Hare arrive at Knox's castle and present the now mangled corpse to Knox. Knox then agrees that if the pair bring him two bodies a week for dissection, he will pay them a large amount of money.Joseph one of the lodgers at the Inn, is an elderly man, near death and before he can die a natural death, this process is speeded up by the duo of Burke and Hare. They take his body to Dr. Robert Knox (Tom Wilkinson), who gives them both a large amount of money.From then onwards, Hare thinks this is a very lucrative business.Verdict: the film is very poorly scripted and the comedy is insufficient and falls flat on its face. Even Ronnie Corbett can't save this film.I have seen 3 films which are far superior than this. They are 1. The Body Snatcher (1945) 2. The Flesh And The Fiends, and 3. The Doctor And The Devils (1985).If the script had been good and with better choice of actors as Burke and Hare, this film could have been better.