Three and Out (2008)

I'll tell you why so serious

Good start, but then it gets ruined

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This is an entertaining British movie, kind of in the tradition of "Shaun of the Dead" (but without the zombies) or "Keeping Mum". Like those films it is a pitch-black comedy, but with a surprisingly soft heart at its center.The story is about a London tube driver (MacKenzie Crook)who has accidentally run over two people in a month and will receive a retirement pension if he hits a third. So he tries to find a suicidal candidate who will agree to jump in front of his train. Naturally, his plans go hilariously awry. He first goes on the internet and meets an extreme German pervert who wants to be eaten (making hilarious light of a very disturbing incident that really did happen in German). He finally settles on a suicidal vagrant (Colm Meaney), but before they complete their "deal", he winds up accompanying, his new associate on a trip to the Lake District to have a final reconciliation with his estranged wife and embittered adult daughter (Gemma Areton).Colm Meaney really makes this movie. He is very funny, but also a very tragic and redemptive character who really allows this movie to transcend its initial very funny, but obviously very silly, conceit to become something genuinely moving. Gemma Areton has a smaller part as his daughter, but she is both genuinely boner-inducing and really great. Frankly, her nude scene is worth the price of admission all by itself, but the movie still would have been good without it. As for Crook, he is more than adequate, as is Imelda Staunton as the wife. I'd definitely recommend this one.

Well first things first. As this movie is marketed as a comedy I would like to point out all the biting and incisive wit within that us Brits are so famous for. Except I can't, because there isn't any! It shows the depths to which studios have plumbed that they actually thought this movie was a marketable commodity.Mackenize Crook sleepwalks his way through a banal and frankly insulting script, as Paul Callow. A Dostoyevsky reading tube train driver, with aspirations to be a writer, who has killed 2 passengers in a matter of weeks and needs just one more to receive a pay off and early retirement. Oh the hilarity as he approaches an old man outside a retirement home and asks him to oblige. Our detestable and unsympathetic hero settles on Colm Meaney's Tommy Cassidy, a tramp with a terminal illness. I know my sides are splitting too! Frankly, that an actor as gifted as Meaney and the wonderful Imelda Staunton, who plays Meaney's wife, have to struggle with this rubbish is embarrassing.It gets worse. Any director that imagines giving the awful fat gob on legs, Kerry Katona, a cameo in his film is going to lend some kind of populist gloss to his trite ideas really should throw himself under the next train to oblivion. Which is where first time director Johnathan Gershfield is surely heading after this abomination. Oh, and don't get me started on future Bond girl Gemma Arterton, she is so wooden she must vomit sawdust! Weak script, weak acting, appalling direction and worst of all an incredibly patronising attempt to tack a pointless feel good moment of self discovery onto the loathsome main character at the end. He can write! He's cleaned his flat! I nearly puked! If you spend good money to watch this rubbish you probably will too. The most poignant moment of the whole film is when Mackenzie Crook looks out of the window of his flat, and on the sill is a copy of Joseph Heller's novel Catch 22. Now thats funny black comedy! This, excuse the pun, is a trainwreck of a movie. Avoid.

to say that this film is great is an understatement it is brilliant. never have i seen such a mix of comedy/ drama/ romance that goes together so fantastically.the cast are excellent with Colm Meaney giving an award winning performance , newcomer Gemma Arterton is fresh & very capable. if there was a vehicle for Mackenzie Crook then this should be it. the audience is able to feel Paul's anxiety and his need for pastures new.it is extremely difficult to think of a film that has ever done such a good job at tackling what is a controversial subject. it's main plus is that the train driving is only ever a small part of the film and the majority of the running time is showing the journey Paul & Tommy go on and in the process we learn why Tommy is who he has become.

OK, so you have had the misfortune of the accidents, and we all know that ASLEF have taken grave offence to this. And, in it's rawest form, they MAY have a point...or do they? Haven't we all watched films that portray dark things for the sake of comedy? OK, take Undertaker's Paradise (2000) for instance - the premise being that an undertaker takes to murdering a load of people to keep his business afloat, essentially for cash. Now, did the 'Undertaker's Union' get in a huff at being portrayed as salacious lovers of death? Perhaps not as i'm not sure they have a union, but my thinking is that they wouldn't have. After all, they realise it's just a film! I digress. OK, so the film starts off at a pretty fast pace with a quick set-up and launches headlong into what is essentially a moral cat-and-mouse extravaganza. But that's wherein the base of the films lies: morality and human emotion.I, like some other reviewers and commentators was surprised by this as it would seem from the posters that it's about chasing the cash, so it was a nice surprise that this as not the case.Mackenzie Crook delivers a good performance, and Gemma Arterton is adequately (and often nakedly) there for the guys, but Colm Meaney and Imelda Staunton really provide the heart-warming depth to the whole film. The interaction and emotional heartstrings that are pulled, using the lead as a vehicle for the film, really works well I feel, and gives the film some good depth, whilst the pace is kept up by the 'comedy capers' of awkward yet sweet Crook.I really do think that those who are offended by the premise should have a peek because it's really quite a sweet film with some real laugh-out-loud gags in there. One of which is Kerry Katona attempting to act, though not sure if that's intentional.I'm giving it an 8 because it makes for a good 'date' movie, and is deffo one for the girlies to enjoy...