A Bunch of Amateurs

A Bunch of Amateurs

source: A Bunch of Amateurs

A very easy comedy around a King Lear representation by a theater of amateurs. A faded American film star and his adventures in a Stratdford of England. A ball of cliches , easy humor and fake crisis. Short, in some measure, a Hallmark. But half of glass is not empty. The admirable cast, their nice work, the kiss of Imelda Staunton and Burt Reynolds, a Burt Reinolds reminding, in few scenes, Sir Sean Connery and, sure, Derek Jacobi just admirable, the relation children parents and nice job of Bond are motives to see this film, not great, not impressive but nice.

There is nothing really original in the story. A film dealing with the production of a play with a Prima Donna star. We had something similar with the Dustin Hoffman directed Quartet in 2012. Despite listing Ian Hislop as a co-writer it's also not very biting. Instead it is a run of the mill slightly amusing movie with hardly any laugh out loud moments and relies on the charm of its cast. Burt Reynolds plays an over the hill action star whose equally has been agent (a frail Charles Durning) sets him up for King Lear for an amateur drama company who want to raise funds to keep going and hey ho Reynolds is on his way to England and a jaunt in the country for he thinks he will be doing Shakespeare in Stratford, but its the small village of Stratford. So now you have a big celebrity in a small village reluctantly taking part and struggling with Shakespeare. The locals do their best to make him feel pampered and he feels like a fish out of water with not even a decent mobile phone signal. Samantha Bond, Imelda Staunton, Derek Jacobi are all in hand to rise above a mundane script. You can tell that even on third gear Jacobi has nailed his Shakespearean text while even though in a well shot scene in the howling rain at night, Reynolds gamely recites Lear but its still mangled. Its not bad but it should had been a lot better. Reynolds has enough class to keep it all together, the subplot involving Reynolds daughter just did not work for me but the film is easy going just like its main star.

What great fun this is. We laughed a great deal. I shall be buying it for sure. I'm mystified by someone's comment that "villages like this don't exist any more in England. Has that person ever been to England? Or if English, have they never been outside a city? Come on, live where we live and you'll see that village is pretty normal. We have plenty of villages where the village shop hasn't been closed down yet. Even supermarkets aren't perfect. I'd never seen Burt Reynolds in anything before that I can recall and I'd no idea he could be so entertaining - I had visualised him as a typical Hollywood beefcake in tough movies. Well now I'll look out for his movies, or at least any that aren't Hollywood formula thugs and car chases and the like. Nice to see Derek Jacobi, a fav. actor of mine, and how well he played petulance! Everyone else is the typical "characters" of any imaginary village - that doesn't make the real village behind the actors any less real! The guesthouse, oh dear, that bedroom is ghastly. I howled at the scene that got the American actor slung out of the guest house for fornication. It didn't need to be totally original, it was predictable, but it was so well acted that it was completely fresh. Nice to see pieces of Lear too, the Bard needs more "exposure" these days! How I laughed when the American complains that the "script" needs drastic cutting!

I don't go to the movies very often - in fact I can't remember the last time - but this was on offer and I'm very glad that I took it up. I have always liked Burt Reynolds, particularly Evening Shade, and I adore Charles Durning, so I squeaked a bit when the names came up at the start. It's a gentle mickey-take of English village life, English country types and the ageing movie start grasping at straws to redeem himself before it's too late. Beautifully shot - I don't care where - in British Countryside with cottages to die for, clear complexions and charming pigs, it is funny, engaging (by the yardstick I judge any film or programme - do I care if they all live or die; the answer in this case, is obviously "yes"). The characters are all wonderfully drawn and the story bowls along at a comfortable pace, witty, pretty and a damn good night's entertainment. I enjoyed an ice cream at the interval, but I shall buy it on DVD.

My wife hit it on the head by saying it was really a TV film and like Midsomer Murders without the Murders! That's all I really wanted to say except that the performances were generally good and Burt Reynolds wig was excellent and looked almost real. I'm now trying to make this up to ten lines but don't really have that much to say and wish that short, pertinent comments were allowed. Oh I've just remembered that Suffolk suddenly had hills, moved presumably from the Isle of Man so that the film had a tax subsidy. I'm really struggling now to say anything else but I would like these comments to be seen by filmgoers. Phew

A fun, low cost movie with a serious undertone portrayed in a light hearted manner - a classic example of what the UK does best putting story, humour and entertainment at the fore-front of the movie experience. Reynolds plays an archaic Hollywood movie star looking to resurrect his career, via an agent whose relationship with the bailiff leaves him with a telephone and chair from which to do his business. The star of the movie at the beginning of the show is a cheeky hound, munching through Reynold's boots. A few predictable Hollywood tantrums from the ageing movie star add to the ambiance of the movie - but the underpinning theme is one of grouping together under adverse and conflicting human forces. Not quite a 'four weddings' nor a 'Notting Hill' but a lovely movie to watch over the Christmas festivities.

The film A Bunch of Amateurs, directed by Andy Cadiff, and staring Burt Reynolds was filmed in 2007 when Mr. Reynolds was 71 years old. The basic concept of using an aging action star to play an aging action star who steps outside of his formulaic career path to play Shakespeare's King Lear is the first clever idea in a series of clever ideas. Actually, Reynolds' character, Jefferson Steel is more than an aging star. He is a burned-out star, a has-been. He is tricked by his even more aged and broken down agent, played with gusto by Charles Durning, into thinking he will be playing in an important venue in England in the hometown of William Shakespeare surrounded by mobs of adoring fans. Instead he is in a small town community theater production being put on by a dedicated group of amateurs who are just trying to keep their theater from sinking into oblivion. Steel is the only big name they can afford, but if they can draw in a decent crowd, and with the support of a local brewer, they hope they just might make it. There are many parallels between the story of Lear and the story of Jefferson Steel. The character of Lear is old and delusional, Steel is fast approaching that same state, and the theater in which it all takes place is old and decrepit. Lear has daughter problems, and so does Steel. Steel has a hard time shifting from being a Hollywood star to doing legitimate theater in the middle of "a bunch of amateurs." He expects to be catered to and treated like royalty, just as Lear does after he has given up the throne. At one point he says he doesn't think he will be able to do the mad scene on the heath, and ultimately he winds up doing the scene for real as his world collapses around him. It's a fairly low budget production and the seams tend to show a bit, but it does have a lot of good stuff in it, and it has an excellent supporting cast. Anything with Imelda Staunton, Derek Jacobi, Samantha Bond and Charles Durning in it has got to be worth watching. The final resolution of the difficulties with the theater and Steel's relationship with his daughter is kind of easy to see coming, but as I said, it's worth watching. The biggest weakness is Burt Reynolds' performance. The character he plays is supposed to be aging and out of touch, but I could not help but wonder at times how much of it was acting and how much real. Maybe Reynolds is that good of an actor, but there were parts of the film where I felt uncomfortable watching him stumble around not seeming to be quite in touch with the camera. He does ultimately deliver a good Lear although I was reminded of when Lawrence Olivier did Othello. He asked Orson Welles if he had any advice on how to do the part. Welles said, don't do it. Othello is a natural baritone while Olivier was a natural tenor. With an incredible amount of hard work, Olivier transformed himself into a baritone. It's the same thing here. Lear is a baritone, and Reynolds is a tenor, but he never makes the transformation. If you like this film, you might also like a film called A Midwinter's Tale (1995). It's the same idea, a group of actors trying to put on a Shakespeare play against seemingly insurmountable odds.

there's the feeling that this film was designed and constructed by a committee out of focus-group friendly but disconnected components; they then seemingly accidentally hired some great talent to do some of the work. The script is often funny and sharp, but frequently slumps into sentimentality. A lot of the acting is very good, but Burt Reynolds is mostly helpless: he can't act the part he has been given except for some of the calmer domestic comedy. Acting the part of an actor acting King Lear? No, he's lost. Most things are done very well, the photography and direction are fine and the music only really grates during the prolonged sentimental guff that spoils the flow of the film particularly in the middle and at the end. It's worth watching for some fine comic acting from the English part of the cast, and for some very professional filmmaking too. It's worth fast forwarding through some of the sentiment, and some of the American acting too.