I saw this film at its "world premiere" at the Cardiff Screen Festival in November 2005. I'm struggling to find words to describe how bad it was, but the omens were not good when the opening titles rolled with a seemingly never-ending list of public funding bodies, Irish and Welsh, who had had their fingers in this pie.
The plot of this so-called comedy involves two brothers from Wales, one a now-famous TV archaeologist Harry Jones (Michael Sheen) who takes little brother Ben (Jason Hughes) back to Ireland for his stag night, to the seaside town where they spent a happy summer 17 years ago.
Ben, although now set to marry his Welsh fiancé, still carries a torch for the young red-haired colleen Sinead (Angeline Ball) who shared that summer with the two boys. Since then she and her Irish boyfriend Styx (Douglas Henshall) have apparently emigrated to Australia. And Harry has a terrible secret he hasn't dared tell his love-struck brother he actually slept with Sinead all those years ago.
So, with a flourish of plot "twists" that my four-year-old daughter could have guessed, it's revealed that Sinead didn't actually go to Australia, because her boyfriend has just spent the last few years in prison for gun-running or terrorism (it's not entirely clear, like most things in the film). And guess what, she has a 17-year-old daughter, who could be Ben's or Harry's.
Throw into the mix, for no apparent reason, a blonde Icelandic photographer, a couple of pantomime Oirish policemen, some nonsense about terrorist weapons buried in the nearby archaeological dig, a ludicrous chase to the border to meet Joe Pasquale as a gay British army lieutenant and you have an awful mess of a film which is about as funny as herpes. Ben and Sinead get married in the last scene, but then I'm sure you could have guessed that, and by that point I'd almost lost the will to live.
How the screenplay got past the first review stage I have no idea, but in the introduction from one of the Welsh funding bodies at the premiere it seemed that the Welsh film industry were desperate to get at least one proper feature film made in 2005, and this was their only prospect. Oh dear, are things really as bad as that? Rating: 2 out of 10, for the soundtrack and some of the cinematography, but I really wouldn't bother if I were you. A lot of good actors wasting their time on poor material.
The plot of this so-called comedy involves two brothers from Wales, one a now-famous TV archaeologist Harry Jones (Michael Sheen) who takes little brother Ben (Jason Hughes) back to Ireland for his stag night, to the seaside town where they spent a happy summer 17 years ago.
Ben, although now set to marry his Welsh fiancé, still carries a torch for the young red-haired colleen Sinead (Angeline Ball) who shared that summer with the two boys. Since then she and her Irish boyfriend Styx (Douglas Henshall) have apparently emigrated to Australia. And Harry has a terrible secret he hasn't dared tell his love-struck brother he actually slept with Sinead all those years ago.
So, with a flourish of plot "twists" that my four-year-old daughter could have guessed, it's revealed that Sinead didn't actually go to Australia, because her boyfriend has just spent the last few years in prison for gun-running or terrorism (it's not entirely clear, like most things in the film). And guess what, she has a 17-year-old daughter, who could be Ben's or Harry's.
Throw into the mix, for no apparent reason, a blonde Icelandic photographer, a couple of pantomime Oirish policemen, some nonsense about terrorist weapons buried in the nearby archaeological dig, a ludicrous chase to the border to meet Joe Pasquale as a gay British army lieutenant and you have an awful mess of a film which is about as funny as herpes. Ben and Sinead get married in the last scene, but then I'm sure you could have guessed that, and by that point I'd almost lost the will to live.
How the screenplay got past the first review stage I have no idea, but in the introduction from one of the Welsh funding bodies at the premiere it seemed that the Welsh film industry were desperate to get at least one proper feature film made in 2005, and this was their only prospect. Oh dear, are things really as bad as that? Rating: 2 out of 10, for the soundtrack and some of the cinematography, but I really wouldn't bother if I were you. A lot of good actors wasting their time on poor material.