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Bookmark this pagePuckoon (2002)
Director: Terence Ryan
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
The mad world of Spike Milligan's 1963 novel is inhabited by the eejits, gobshites and cnawvshawling bollixes of the titular small town, northeast of Sligo. After a physical struggle with the pen, the Border Commission - post-partition, 1924 - overseen by the apoplectic Sir John (Jones), slices Puckoon in half. Barbed wire goes up, ructions erupt and cross border conflicts flare. The British Army's ineffectual Colonel Stokes (Rhys-Jones) demands passports and receives contempt; indignant Father Rudden (O'Malley) transports bodies from his newly Northern Irish cemetery to the safety of the Free State; the IRA secretes arms in coffins; and, momentously, the community's faithful drinkers are forced to the cheaper Free State end of the bar. Writer/director Ryan deals with all this much in the manner of an extended TV sketch, embracing Oirish national stereotyping with the enthusiasm he showed in The Brylcreem Boys. It's old-fashioned nonsense, a rambling, occasionally funny tribute to the hit and miss anarchism of Milligan's comedy.Author: WH
Cast & crew
Director: Terence Ryan
Producer: Ken Tuohy, Terence Ryan
Cast: Sean Hughes, Elliott Gould, Richard Attenborough, Daragh O'Malley, John Lynch, Griff Rhys-Jones, Nickolas Grace, BJ Hogg, David Kelly, Milo O'Shea, Freddie Jones full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 84 mins
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