Brighton Rock
Dir: Rowan Joffe
2011
**
I thought the idea of updating the story and setting it in the early 60's was quite clever, a slightly more modern telling of the classic novel by Graham Greene, why not I thought. Well, Rowan Joffe proves why not in this dreadful and dreadfully boring film. Helen Mirren and John Hurt try their very best to prop up this pointless film but it's pretty much doomed from the beginning. What all the fuss is about Sam Riley I really don't know, putting on a stupid gruff voice does not make you into an instant villain. Also, the whole battle of the Mods and the Rockers is fiction, it's urban myth, silly of them to make out it is history and it doesn't make up for the lack of excitement the original had. I always had issues with the way the final scene with the vinyl record played in the original but this updated version is bordering on sacrilege as far as the book is concerned. A huge disappointment and above all, just really boring.