| Subject: Shergar |
Author:
Suky
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Date Posted: 11:24:45 11/26/04 Fri
Hey, is anybody here, or am I just talking to myself? Are you trying to tell me something? (Don't tell me I really am David Warner's only fan!)
I finally got around to watching Shergar last night. I thought it was pretty good--that is, it held my attention, which is saying a lot--although why is it that any movie named after an animal has to be sad--for the animal anyway? Animals in film are kinda like the red-shirt guys in Star Trek (or the blue-shirt guys in Galaxy Quest!). This one's inspired by the true story of a famous race horse who was stolen and ransomed by the IRA in the 1980s.
You wouldn't know it from the cast listing on the IMDb, which matches the film's credits exactly (for some reason they're in alphabetical order instead of the usual "in order of appearance"--even the main human character is at the bottom of the list, and the title character doesn't get a mention at all!), but David Warner has a major supporting role, although he kind of fades out as the movie wears on. (I wish we could have seen his character again after the denouement!) I thought he was really good in it as the conflicted farmer who helps to hide Shergar, but his Irish accent could use a little work. (He sounds convincing at times, but then he keeps forgetting his r's! Unfortunately, I have a thing about accents in movies; if they don't sound real, they just distract me.)
You even have to go the second page of cast credits to see Mickey Rourke's name--who, for all his acclaim, seems completely wasted in the film; not only does his character seem kind of pointless, but his performance as the chief bad guy is completely devoid of enthusiasm. (The main hatchet man, whose character's name I didn't catch so I can't find him in the credits, was much more menacing and believable. I'd like to see more of that actor.) Rourke (his character has the same name) is supposed to have a "Belfast accent," but I guess Mickey wasn't up to the task either; he seems to cover up any shortcomings by muttering. In fact, they could have just used a wooden statue of him instead since he seems to have only one facial expression.
On the other hand, while I was never crazy about him before (25 years later, I'm still scarred by his creepy performance in Alien!), I thought Ian Holm, as a Yeats-spouting ex-hippy tinker, was excellent. How many movies is it that he and David Warner have been in together now, like 10? They didn't have any scenes together in this though.
So who else saw the movie, and what did you think of it?
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