James Cosmo

Movie review - Get Duked! (2019)

In its own slippery game of generational cat and mouse, Doff's film is one that brazenly revels in absurdity; unashamedly committing to increasingly implausible sub-plots involving bread thieves, dim-witted police prejudice and the sharpness of forks.

Boyz in the Wood review

A group of youngsters stuck in the Scottish countryside become the hunted in Ninian Doff's wacky mashup.

TV review: Hold the Sunset

After 39 years away, John Cleese returns to the sitcom format with a cosy affair.

Review: Pointless Whisky Galore remake lacks in spirit

A great cast alone does not a good film make as this all-too-gentle and rather pointless retread of Alexander Mackendrick's 1949 Ealing classic showcases.

Whisky Galore - review

Many, myself included, will balk at the idea of a remake of this classic film believing it really shouldn't be tampered with. However director Gillies MacKinnon has wisely decided to stick with the winning formula and has merely updated it seemingly by flicking a switch which has transformed it into colour.

TV review: Stag, BBC2, episode 2

I'm not sure how much it qualifies as a comedy now that it has got proper scary, but I'm really enjoying Stag.

Stag: episode 2 review

As with the last episode, the best thing about this episode is the characters, who are at first are mostly unlikable, but as their crisis grows you understand that each has their own problems.

Created and written by Jim Field-Smith, the creator of the wonderful The Wrong Mans, alongside George Kay, Stag follows the exploits of a boisterous gang of men on a stag party. Stumbling along as a late arrival to the hunting weekend is Ian (Jim Howick), a mild-mannered geography teacher who is totally different to the other stags celebrating the last weekend of freedom of Johnners (Stephen Campbell Moore). Ian's weekend gets off to a bad start from the get-go as he's left at the side of the road by the rest of the party before being landed with a bar bill from the local pub's stern waitress (Sharon Rooney). Events soon take a dark twist when the men are abandoned by the local gamekeeper (James Cosmo) and forced to fend for themselves in the wild. Quickly some of the party are picked off and are thought to be killed whilst the rest start to turn on each other with suspicion quickly falling on outsider Ian. I have to admit it took me a while to adjust to Stag which has none of the charm or quirky British humour which made The Wrong Mans such a joy to watch. The majority of the characters in Stag, with the exception of Ian, are initially unlikeable toffs who are described by the mild-mannered Aitken (Tim Key) as the worst kind of people. But as Kay and Field-Smith's story continues they start to reveal complexities in the characters all of whom seem to be hiding secrets of some kind. The writing duo also seem to have done their research into the sort of genre they want Stag to fit into with the general tone being that of horror thriller. There are definitely elements of both The Wicker Man and Deliverance both in the presentation of the local community and the way in which the party start to be picked off. The humour is also subtly presented with a lot of smutty, laddy banter mixed in with some genuinely funny one-liners. The ensemble cast bounced off each other perfectly with Howick brilliantly portraying the awkward outsider and the rest of the gang having excellent chemistry. I especially liked Reece Shearsmith's brief appearance as the party member who wants to escape his family as well as Borgen's Pilou Asbaek as the Danish oddball. Although I've already got an idea of how Stag is going to end I'm intrigued enough to carry on watching what must be one of the most unique TV shows of the year so far.

BBC Two's "comedy thriller" Stag sees seven moneyed and pompous southern child-men that have hurled themselves and their greed-cards into the maw of rainy Perthshire. The best man on the stag do is called Ledge, and this isn't shorthand for thick and shelfish: it's short for "Legend", which tells you pretty much all you need to know about the banker chaps. The hunters, of course, become the hunted. It's Deliverance as written by Irvine Welsh and, somehow, Nicola Sturgeon.

"You're supposed to be taking us hunting, not standing around looking Scottish," demands Ledge of his hired gamekeeper. He is echoed - "too full of Mars bars in batter", ho ho, by the other surefire dicks and other noncom asshats. Don't they know that their gamekeeper is played by James Cosmo, in the planes of whose entire face honour and murder lurk?

It gets better, and better, and the humour finally takes a back seat to the humanity. Stick with this: wholly rewarding and surprising.