Wide Open Spaces (2009)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

People are voting emotionally.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Imagine the Irish boom years never happened. Everything is run down. No-one has any actual money, everyone relying on other peoples I.O.U.s. Politicians are grubby and self serving. "Entrepreneurs" and "Developers" are loud mouthed chancers. Some of the best Irish comedians came out of the grimness of the pre-Celtic Tiger era, and now the bad times are back, Arthur Matthews obviously feels back on familiar territory.Less a conventional film, more an extended shaggy dog story. Echoes of Father Ted? They are there beneath the surface, though disconcertingly Ardal O'Hanlon has morphed from Dougal to Ted. The archetypal comedic paring, stuck together like Vladimir and Estragon, Myles is a self-aware loser, struck by the despair of his situation, unable to part himself from Austin, an innocent fool, never able to see quite how bad things have got.Owen Roe is the star attraction though, with his famine theme park, and worship of Michael O'Leary. The DVD extras where he is interviewed about the park are almost better than the film. Ted Fans will spot Father Todd Unctious and Father Cyril MacDuff in nice character rolls.Would the film have been better with more development and a bigger budget? No doubt, but that sort of thing really doesn't matter to connoisseurs of the offbeat. Those who like Father Ted for its slapstick outrageousness (more Linehan's style) will perhaps be disappointed, those who value it for its sense of place, quirkiness, and getting under the skin of deeply flawed characters are more likely to warm to this film.

Coming to this film by way of having read that Neil Hannon put some music to it, and being familiar with the Father Ted series, I had expected to see a funny light movie. I was therefore not entirely sure what to make of it at first, it being kind of slow and sombre. If it hadn't been for me wanting to hear the music I might not have finished it, as it was somewhat lacking in clear plot lines and momentum. However, I'm glad I did, because all in all it is a very enjoyable movie, with a humble sense of humour, attention to people, landscape, light and weather (think Bela Tarr, but less depressing). It may have been that seeing this movie in 3 or 4 parts and not in one continuous sitting, has given it more time to sink in and be absorbed (see 15 minutes, pause for making coffee, see some more, sleep over it, and finish on a quiet Sunday, then think about it some more). It will then possibly leave you with a melancholy longing for desolate quarries in the company of one or two acquaintances after having done nothing important but experiencing a kind of satisfactory feeling. Looking forward to a DVD with slow commentary and a making of.

I'm not sure exactly what this is.It's like someone has watched a couple of Beckett and Pinter plays then a Carry On film and decided to have a go themselves.It's full of inexplicable silences and overblown slow prop mishandling. There's an over- current of drabness with a lot of very affected acting. There's the conversations that go nowhere and have no purpose. All of these things can be great, if done well... and a lot of it has been done well but still isn't great. There's a mystery here somewhere as to why this has gone wrong; it's hard to point a finger at. Can't fault the actual performances and it's an interesting enough story...It just somehow doesn't work. If I had to make a stab at it I'd say that there is something in the execution that puts a distance between me and the film. It's the putting together that's made the problem maybe.I'm coming to the conclusion that they meant to do a play and accidentally ended up making a film. I could see it working as a play, but it just doesn't as a film.

I love Ardal O'Hanlon, his performance as Dougal in the sitcom 'Father Ted', is one of the best things about 90's, UK comedy. I love Ewan Bremner, his performance in Trainspotting as the junkie, Spud, is one of the best things about 90's, UK cinema. Why then would both actors agree to star in something that feels like the aborted pilot of the worlds most depressing buddy-comedy? Myles (O'Hanlon) and Austin (Bremner) are best friends, who agree to work on Ireland's first, and only, famine themed adventure park. It's being run by a crooked businessman, who in turn is being funded by an eccentric, video-art obsessed, middle-aged vamp, who takes every opportunity to flirt with both him, and the two lads. They share a tin hut, in which a lot of the film is set, as they sit on their bunks and discuss their various problems in depth. O'Hanlon as Myles actually has a few good lines and his character, a depressed, pseudo intellectual, is quite engaging and sympathetic. He's level headed, but has very bad luck in life, chain smoking and pontificating away. Spud from Trainspotting, sorry, I mean Ewan Bremner, is playing Austin as a complete idiot, stumbling through his chores, and kind of making life more difficult for poor Myles.Their boss charges them with some inexplicable debt collection, whereby they meet the repugnant Mr. Doo-La-Lee (HAHAHAHAHA!!!), who tries to do a runner, but winds-up becoming their friend, silly adventures follow. The film relies on the same brand of awkward humour that made 'The Office' a huge hit, as well as a little slap-stick and a small dose of dry, self-depreciating navel gazing, which was the only thing that kept me watching. I counted 14 people who left, and it was a press screening and yes, I did count, I was that bored. The film simply doesn't work. It's stilted, boring and frustrating. Written by the talented Arthur Mathews (Brass Eye, The Day Today, Big Train, The Fast Show, Black Books - This guy's a Brit-Com veteran!), Wide Open Spaces is, at best, not very funny and quite disappointing given the talent involved, and at worst, unwatchable.