Mindhorn

This is simply a fun movie. It has a really nice fun vibe and it is. Mindhorn is simply a washed up actor who is on his last legs and is a has-been. Through current events, he has become needed in the world to solve a real world crime years after his career is over. It is a fun ride as Mindhorn discovers himself and redeems himself. Mindhor is fun and a 9 out of 10. It is simply a good fun times full of laughs.

This is one of the worst films I have seen in a very long time. I felt like slashing my wrists. I've grown quite tired of these "self-unaware" characters. We've already had Austin Powers, Zoolander, and Tugg Speedman. We don't need any more. I'm actually giving the movie more credibility than it is due with comparisons to Hollywood fare. This is more like The Keith Lemon Movie. Richard Thorncroft is a has-been actor who once starred in a 1980s regional detective series called Mindhorn, set on the Isle of Man, in which he played a one-eyed sleuth who could "see" the truth. He quits this role, believing that Hollywood is beckoning, and never finds work again. An amusing anticipation of appropriate reality for the rest of Julian Barratt's career, likely. Many years later, and desperate for work, a chance at redemption comes along when a madman thinks that the show is real and demands to talk with the actual Mindhorn character to resolve a murder plot. It is the E-X-A-C-T set-up from the awful Alan Partridge movie from 2013, and it too completely squanders its potential by only ever going for the easiest "comedy" and broadest laughs, and even those are few and far between. The useless talent agent character is even directly plagiarised from Extras. Every. Single. Setup. in this film is wasted on "cringe" humor, which can be very funny in TV shows like The Office or Curb Your Enthusiasm, but it's not here. They could have built the comedy on Thorncroft finding his own moxie and truly becoming Mindhorn, understanding his previous errors, and taking a stand for himself. Nope! At best, at an impossibly lenient push, this is 40-minute TV special fare. There's NOTHING remotely theatrical about this, right down to the ugly "photography". Like the Alan Partridge movie, Mindhorn is shot in a sort of digital Super35 process where they just shoot a 1.78:1 image and chop the top and bottom to fake a scope aspect ratio, which makes every shot look cramped and poorly composed, and the unnaturally boosted saturation is not pleasant to look at. Even without this problem the flat lighting is very televisual. It depresses me that movies this abysmal get funding and distribution. Is this what comedy has become? Is this what the tastes of society have degraded to? I cannot trash this garbage enough, and I predict that the Blu-rays will be stacked floor-to-ceiling in Poundland very soon. Beyond terrible!

A moderately amusing and very likable spoof of 80's action shows that doesn't attain the heights of the similar 'Galaxy Quest' and 'Hot Fuzz'; one keeps willing 'Mindhorn' to be funnier and more stylish than it ever actually is. We all know that Richard Thorncroft is supposed to be a bore, but the film is a bit too successful at reminding us of that (although one does feel sorry for the poor oaf). Even at just 89 minutes it feels overextended, the drab visuals and sluggish pacing rather too successfully emulating the look and feel of the TV originals it lovingly parodies; and it has an unnecessarily convoluted plot. It's a bit too evident that all this really belongs on the telly rather than the big screen - with tantalising hints how much better it could have worked with slicker direction and sharper editing - and 'Mindhorn' will probably enjoy a long career on DVD. The scenes with Thorncroft and Clive trading insults are amusing, and those with David Schofield as the exasperated chief inspector hilarious. SPOILER COMING: Andrea Riseborough as DC Baines's late transformation into a ruthless leather-clad assassin is one of many great ideas that don't quite deliver, since her scenes in that persona - along with the rest of the action scenes in general - simply don't supply the slambang conclusion they promise.

Not the worst movie ever, and it's less than an hour and a half long. It raises an occasional wry smile. Enough praise, on with the review. I suppose the younger set, who this movie is aimed at, may not have seen these comedy cliches before, but for anyone else, everything here is recycled from as far back as (in my memory anyway) Benny Hill and Tony Hancock. Skitting an Eighties sci-fi/detective series (a sort of Bergerac/Six Million Dollar Man mash-up) is shooting fish in the proverbial barrel. The deluded, cocksure hero, thinking he's a hit with the ladies, but paunchy and pathetic, is a standard character. And the strong, sensible female lead (ironically given very little of note to do) is becoming a hackneyed trope too. The most annoying thing about the recent wave of Brit comedies and TV shows is that it's the same cosy little cartel of comics and actors, seemingly more intent on making each other laugh than the audience. This just more of the same.

It'll not really bring forth a giggle, but if you got nothing better to do, watch it. It's different from the Hollywood bullshit. It's a low budget movie designed to feel like one. The plot is pretty obvious and the characters aren't that well written. But if you have a night off and are preparing for bedtime, this is a movie worth the watch.

Richard Thorncroft is a has-been British TV actor who used to be famous in the late 1980's for playing the titular and charismatic lead role in the Isle of Man detective show Mindhorn, a character with a Robotic eye that could literally see the truth. Richard has an unexpected opportunity to reignite his career though when a delusional criminal calling himself The Kestrel starts terrorising the Isle of Man and, having an extremely unhealthy obsession with the show, demands to talk only to Mindhorn. Relishing a chance for publicity, Richard dons his robotic eye, aggravates the police with his method acting, and tries to rekindle an old romance......... I think to appreciate the film just that little bit more, you really have to be of a certain age when these awfully cheesy police shows were rife on the T.V. back in the eighties. Granted, the U.K. never had anything as over the top as Mindhorn, but shows like Dempsey and Makepeace, C.A.T.S eyes, and Lovejoy were very tongue in cheek. You could really imagine Mindhorn being a staple of Saturday night T.V right after the football results were read out at five in the afternoon, while all the family were sitting having their tea. But I wonder just how many celebrities who made it big very quickly and then tried to make it big in Hollywood and failing miserably does Barratt reference? The obvious ones are Coronation Street's own Chris Quentin who famously played 'reporter 2' in Robocop 2, or Ali Osman from Eastenders who went there, came back, and co-starred in Carry On Columbus. And then there's Robert Lindsay, but he came back and made My family. It's a truly wonderful concept, and there are times when the film is laugh out loud funny, especially when Simon Callow makes an appearance. But Thorncroft doesn't really feel like an original character, as at times he reminded me of David Brent, and even Alan Partridge. But the film never outstays it's welcome, and Barratt is self deprecating enough to make Thorncroft funnier than he should be. But if you find the first ten minutes utterly hilarious, especially the Mindhorn opening credits, you'll find lots to love about this.

Imagine if you will,what would have come along if the British producers of Bergerac or The Persuaders or the Professionals had added that bit of Imaginative American teenage sci-fi appeal from Night rider, or the Six Million Dollar man. The result would have been MINDHORN. Isle of Man detective Mindhorn lost his real eye in some brief special forces career, or some such usual drivel, and was given a special cybernetic lie detecting one by goodness knows who and then rather than using it to better mankind in special government service answering to chief Ernest Borgenine or David Doyle , as he would have in an American version he decided to return to the Isle of man and become a detective. Imagine further more that the star of this show became a big "I AM" for a while ( not at all like William Shatner) thinking he was too big for his own show and managed to alienate most of his co-stars and went off to Hollywood to become a star and. . . . .Didn't. So there is the back story on wacky British comedy Mindhorn; and where those original protagonists are now and how they would react when thrown back together is the meat of the situational and sometimes slapstick comedy that ensues. The plot is really just a vehicle to make that happen but for those of you that think it's really important ( maybe you have Austrian blood in you and Tut if someone crosses the road when the little red Man is lit even when there isn't a car in sight ) then, there is one, it envolves a young man with special educational needs, suspected of a crime, who believes Mindhorn was a true life drama and will only speak to detective Mindhorn. He therefore has to be brought back to the island who's thespians and population alike he has alienated by his pretentious and high handed past behaviour in order to bring the suspect in. His career having gone no where, the actor in question Richard Thorncroft played by co writer Julian Barrat is desperate for some "profile" and doesn't take a lot of persuasion to put the bionic eye-patch back on. It's not a truly original comedic genre, following closely in the footsteps of David Brent and Alan Partridge without being quite as numbingly cringeworthy but does add in a good deal more sight gaggery and actual joke jokes until there's really something for everyone. It may be if you are an Office fan this will be nowhere near hard core embarrassing enough for you and if you're a big Last of the Summer Wine conservative sleepy locals react to odd-balls stuff this will be far too harsh in places, I have appreciated both and this has elements of both in it. Simon Farnaby, or the Stupid Deaths man as my son calls him gives an "untrustworthy foreigner" performance of the type British actors in America have made their own to the point of there having been absolutely no suspense in a US action suspense film for over 20 years ( IT'S THE British GUY!!!) I laughed a lot in this but deliberately watched it with friends of both sexes all in our late 40's and 50's feeling it would benefit from that shared knowledge of the programmes and attitudes of the time and if did communal viewing builds the laughs as the film progressess, a couple of throwaway sexist lines are breathtakingly funny, but I know some of my ex-pupils have found it excellent as well, The plot is silly and ridiculous so if that is really important to you you'd be better off not watching than doing so and then boring the rest of us telling us how you can't understand how we didn't spot all the holes in it that ruined the film; We did, we just didn't give a rat's arse. So I'd happily recommend it to anyone old enough to remember The Professionals

"Mindthorn" is one of the newest Netflix productions to be released. However, it is very unusual in that it has a mostly British cast and it was filmed on the Isle of Man, an unusual location for a Netflix film, I know. In fact, most people outside the United Kingdom probably have no idea where the Isle of Man is or if it exists at all! I assure you, it does and the self-governing island is home to tailless cats and motorcycle racing! When the story begins, you learn that back in the late 1980s there was a British television series called "Mondhorn". It was about some bizarre private detective with a cybernetic eye who went on adventures and solved crimes. The problem is that today, a crazed maniac believes that the show was completely real and is demanding the police let him speak to Mindhorn. As for the actor who played the title character, Richard Thorncroft (Julian Barrett) is a complete mess and can only find work doing commercials for compression socks and adult bladder protection these days! He hopes that by traveling to the island that he'll become a hero and revive his stalled career. But there is one serious problem. Thorncroft is a complete jerk and a dumb one at that. He manages to alienate just about everyone he meets and you cannot help but hate him, but there is far, far more to the story. Up to the point I've described, the film is a bit hard to take because Thorncroft is such a big jerk.a thorough and complete jerk. Fortunately, the second half of the film improves tremendously and becomes rather funny especially when he ends up teaming up with a guy who calls himself 'the Kestrel'. The film takes a definite turn towards the weird as well as the heroic and actually is very unique and worth seeing. This film is clearly one that I urge you to keep watchingeven with a slow start. My wife cringed repeatedly and found Thorncroft's character so annoying and awful she wanted to stop watching. As for me, I have a higher threshold for the embarrassing and weird and really enjoyed the film. It's uneven, of course, but a film that ends on a very high note. Hopefully, we'll see more stuff like this from Netflix.

From the start it looks like bit of British take on the Anchorman but as the movie progresses it brings out its distinction. The plot gets a bit too straight forward near the end but the movie never ceases to charm the laughter out of the viewers. I absolutely loved it. Mindhorn is one of the best comedy movies in the past 5+ years much better than big Hollywood budgets are pathetically struggling to achieve lately.

The new British action comedy film Mindhorn starring starring Julian Barratt, Steve Coogan, Kenneth Branagh, Harriet Walter, Andrea Riseborough, Essie Davis, Russell Tovey, Jessica Barden. In Mindhorn washed-up actor Richard Thorncroft (English actor Julian Barratt - The Harry Hill Movie, A Field In England) peaked with hit 1980s detective show 'Mindhorn', playing the titular Isle of Man sleuth with a rather unique ability. As a captured MI5 Special Operative, Bruce P. Mindhorn's eye was replaced by a super-advanced optical lie detector, which meant he could literally 'see the truth'. Mindhorn escaped and fled to the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea between and Northern Ireland, to recuperate in the island's temperate microclimate, and became the best plain-clothes detective the island had ever seen... Decades later, when a deranged Manx criminal Paul Melly (English actor Russell Tovey - Tower Block, Pride) demands only to speak to "Detective Mindhorn", Thorncroft returns to the scene of his greatest triumph for one last chance to reignite his glory days and professional credibility. Amongst the other actors / actresses in Mindhorn include Australian actress Essie Davis (The Matrix films, Girl With A Pearl Earring) as Patricia Deville, English actress Andrea Riseborough (Welcome To The Punch, Oblivion) as DC Baines, Northern Ireland actor Kenneth Branagh (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) as himself, English actor and comedian Steve Coogan (Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, The Parole Officer) as actor Peter Eastman, English actress Harriet Walter (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Denial) as an Agent, English actress Jessica Barden (Hanna, UK TV Series Coronation Street) as Jasmine Patricia's daughter, English actor Simon Callow (Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Amadeus) as himself, English actor Simon Farnaby (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Paddington) as Dutch actor Clive Parnevik, English actor Nicholas Farrell (Legend 2015, The Iron Lady) as The Mayor, English actor David Schofield (Pirates Of The Caribbean films, Gladiator) as Chief Inspector Derek Newsome, Scottish actor Richard McCabe (Eye In The Sky, Notting Hill) as Geoffrey Moncrieff, English actor Alex Wyndham (The Messenger, Lotus Eaters) as Jake, English actor Jordan Long (Kingsman: The Secret Service, Tower Block) as Vincent, Alannah Olivia (Kill Your Friends) as Trudy, English actor Robin Morrissey (Cloud Atlas, Love Bite) as PC Green and Christopher Jenner Cole (The Killing Zone, Adams Apples) as Richard Crowthorne. Mindhorn is shot on location on the Isle Of Man. Overall Mindhorn is a good British action comedy film filled with action, some violence, funny moments, tongue and cheek stuff, swearing, some odd strange moments, stunning scenery of the Isle Of Man, fall outs, arguments, disagreements, some things that don't make much sense, things getting wrecked and destroyed and other things throughout the film. So I will give Mindhorn an overall rating of 3 out of 5 stars and Mindhorn is worth seeing if you like action comedy films like Spy, the Johnny English films. the Hot Shot films, the Rush Hour films, Get Smart amongst others. So if you get the chance to see Mindhorn at the cinema then you should go and see it sooner than later.