14 DAY TRIAL // There are anti-heroes and then there’s Detective Bruce Robertson, a racist, homophobic, sexist, shameless, drug-addict, alcoholic, ambitious, funny, sad excuse for a human being, the lead in “Filth,” the big screen adaptation of the “unfilmable” novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh.
Welsh is the same author who gave us “Trainspotting,” whose big screen adaptation is now a cult classic. “Filth” the movie, from writer-director Jon S. Baird, lives in the shadow of “Trainspotting” but manages to get out of it by its gruesome end. It is, better said, a worthy successor – and totally lives up to its name.
Within the first minutes of the film, Bruce manages to be exactly everything you loathe in a man. There are no visible redeeming qualities to him and, yet, you can’t help but feel a tinge of sympathy for him especially since he’s so damned funny and evil, and particularly so when he briefly brings down the wall between him the audience, to share a knowing wink with them.
Bruce is a policeman even if you’d probably not know it by just looking at him and / or spending a few minutes in his presence. He’s gunning for a big promotion at work and he’ll stop at nothing to climb up the ladder, and that includes drugging, bullying, and framing his mates, whom he perceives as direct threats.
Bruce is like an evil spider who keeps working on his web until everyone is caught in it. His victims include his sidekick Ray (Jamie Bell), the innocent Gus (Gary Lewis), the prim Amanda (Imogen Poots), the “offensively gay” Peter (Emun Elliot), troubled housewife Bunty (Shirley Henderson), and last but not least, Bruce’s wife Carole (Shauna Macdonald). And Bruce himself, eventually.
On the outside, Bruce is just a fun and shameless guy, the kind you’d never get bored around if you happened to share his disposition. Sure, he does mountains of coke and drinks vodka before going to work in the morning, would not stop short of taking advantage of a teen girl during a bust just because he can, and he is the very embodiment of the term “offensive,” but at least he fits in with the rest of his mates.
And if you think he’s bad on the outside, just you wait until the movie descends into his psychosis: “Filth” is an exercise into the scabrous mind of a deranged individual who has lost all contact with real life, a dark snap of the human soul. With all that, even if it’s not for the squeamish, “Filth” is funny in a way that only British cinema can be: marked by a dark, twisted, and depraved sense of humor that will almost – almost! – make you feel ashamed for laughing out loud.
Starting off strong and on a very funny note, “Filth” changes pace halfway through, to deliver a chilling insight into the mind of a man who has nothing left to lose (or gain) in life, and ultimately to offer an explanation for what was initially perceived as pure, gratuitous evil.
This is a film that uses shocking visuals and well-chosen music to support brilliant performances from the cast and Welsh’s smart plot twists, to shock you into the realization that, sometimes, things are not what they seem. And that, you know, “same rules apply” for everyone.
McAvoy, for one, stands out for delivering the best and most multi-layered performance of his career so far. Worldwide audiences already knew him for being incredibly versatile, but they truly never saw him like this: he has the ability to go from one emotion to next in the space of a second, to be “filthy” while still retaining some of his natural charm, dangerous and vulnerable at the same time.
McAvoy is Detective Bruce Robertson with everything that entails, and this is probably the highest praise he can receive for his performance.
“Filth” is rated R for strong content, graphic nudity, drug use, language, and some violence. A clean version of the official trailer is embedded below; the red band version is available on YouTube, but *please note that discretion is recommended before viewing it because it contains images and language that might offend.
The film runs for 97 minutes and opened in Scotland in September last year, in the UK in October, but will arrive in US theaters on May 30. It will become available online there starting April 24.
