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Burke and Hare (2010)

Director: John Landis

Time Out rating

Average user rating

40 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

If comedy is tragedy plus time, it stands to reason that the more time passes, the more tragic the event we can be persuaded to laugh at. The murder of sixteen people – and the sale of their bodies for medical research – doesn’t exactly scream ‘comedy gold’, but set it in the nineteenth century, make it more a tale of poverty, pratfalls and political intrigue than actual hands-on killing, and hire ‘American Werewolf’ maestro John Landis to direct, and bingo. While ‘Burke and Hare’ can’t claim the wit, style and invention of Landis’s earlier grisly masterpiece, it does mark a major return to form for a director who has spent the better part of a decade in the wilderness. Rest assured, it’s a hell of an improvement on ‘Beverly Hills Cop 3’.

Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis play William Burke and William Hare, Irish immigrants to Edinburgh who turn to body-snatching when other enterprises dry up. As the presence of two such likeable actors might suggest, Burke and Hare aren’t the villains here, just hapless ne’er-do-wells desperate for cash. The real bad guys are, well, just about everyone else: Tom Wilkinson and Tim Curry as devious doctors, Hugh Bonneville as the sleazy surgeon general and David Hayman as cut-throat gangster MacTavish.

And it’s this rogue’s gallery of homegrown comedy and character acting talent which makes ‘Burke and Hare’ the pleasure it is: Pegg and Serkis are relaxed and likeable in the leads, Wilkinson and Curry hissable as their adversaries, and there’s sterling support from five decades of familiar comedy and classic horror faces: Christopher Lee, Jenny Agutter, Bill Bailey, Reece Shearsmith, Jessica Hynes, Stephen Merchant. The gold star goes to Ronnie Corbett’s impeccably infuriated turn as short-arse militia captain McLintock, though a single-scene cameo from Paul Whitehouse as a tuneless inebriate runs him close.

The one bum note is struck by Isla Fisher as Burke’s would-be girlfriend Ginny, but it’s hardly her fault: her Scots accent just about holds to the end of the movie, but her part feels awkwardly bolted on to provide romantic interest and sexual frisson. It doesn’t work: when the rest of the plot concerns dastardly deeds done down dark alleys, the sight of Pegg and Fisher making eyes at one another feels clumsy and inappropriate.

Landis directs like an old pro, cluttering the screen with intriguing little details (surgical tools, scientific equipment, body parts) and displaying a nice line in absurdist comic asides. The humour may be too broad in places – corpse-based slapstick pales with repetition – but, for the most part, ‘Burke and Hare’ is well-timed and often funny. Whether we ought to be laughing at this sort of thing is another matter, and reading into the actual facts of the case (most of the victims were women, Hare shopped Burke to save his own skin) does leave the movie feeling slightly vulgar and tasteless – but doesn’t prevent it from being highly entertaining.

Author: Tom Huddleston

Time Out London Issue 2097: October 28 – November 3, 2010

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User reviews of this film

tonylid said...

Posted on Mar 08 2011 16:09 instead of looking for some deep meaning to a film why not just go out to enjoy it for what it is - a slapstick comedy of laugh out loud proprotions. as it says at the beginning, the following evebts are true except for those that are not. 5 stars from me.

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Gort said...

Posted on Feb 19 2011 19:06 I think that Landis tried to give comment on current situation with jobs and value of human life. This is a movie in stile of "Capitalism a love story" and "Inside job" in other words when you watch it you are shocked how things are still the same.

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Pedro B said...

Posted on Nov 12 2010 20:15 Help help can someome review this film instead of squabbling about how many people might have seen it and popularity lists.What was it like ???

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Dorothy said...

Posted on Nov 10 2010 01:29 Stephanie: If you put your work out there and are happy to accept praise, awards, and the riches that go with the success of it, you have to accept when it’s poor it’ll be criticised.

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Just Passing Thru said...

Posted on Nov 09 2010 23:41 Hmmmm ... Stephanie, I'm one of the ones grateful for those who post genuine, honest opinions on films here. All too often the movie industry gets excited about films that aren't that good. By the time you add drinks, and popcorn to the cost of the tickets, going to the cinema can be a costly mistake if it's been oversold by the reviewers. Perhaps less scrupulous writers, producers, actors, etc who inflate their movies on this site should think of Joe and Josephine Public who have to find the money to treat their family to a film. As for StatGurl, hasn’t she just pointed out what everyone else’s missed - that those on this page who’ve sworn the auditorium was bulging at the seams with audience have clearly been lying? I’d rather hear an honest comment than a dishonest one. Go for it StatGurl.

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Stephanie said...

Posted on Nov 09 2010 18:55 I just think "Stat Girl" should "get a life"! Does nobody ever think about the writers whose hard work they are trashing.

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jono said...

Posted on Nov 09 2010 18:42 I can only apologise for mis-typing '5th' instead of '6th'. But the thought I was putting forward still seems vaild to me : If there are something like 190 films on general release (and please don't take that as an exact number), and if it is statistically proven that no more than 40 people attend the 6th most popular of those circa 190 films, then it would not be a great outlook for the film industry ?
Which makes me very glad I don't work in the marketing department of a film company. (I work in the city).

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Porco said...

Posted on Nov 09 2010 16:33 So... Bums on seats equates to cinematic greatness? Then what price 'Miller's Crossing'? And must we kiss goodbye to 'The Shawhsank Redemption' too?

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StatGirl said...

Posted on Nov 09 2010 16:23 Thanks Jono, but no problem with basic maths here, and that's all this is. Only if the underlying information is wrong would the results be incorrect - and the info was lifted from the "Box Office" link at the top of the page. Nice try, but both sets of stats seem to demonstrate this film should have been sold to Channel 5 to be shown at 2am.

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just passing thru said...

Posted on Nov 09 2010 13:39 "fifth most attended"? where are you getting your info from "jono"? according to the box office links on this site b&h is 6th across the UK and 9th across london, not 5th. maybe your poor eyesight explains how you imagined all those people around you when you saw the film or, of course, maybe you’re privvy to info marketing departments would have - the sorting of marketing department you said in a previous post you didn’t work for. i didn’t rate this film either. i guess the number of cinemas who continue to show this film the week after next will show how popular this film has been and what effect word of mouth has had.

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jono said...

Posted on Nov 09 2010 12:25 Hello Statgirl - interesting to reflect that, with Burke & Hare currently being the fifth most attended film in the country, then if the basis of your calculations was correct, it would be hard to enter a cinema with more than forty people in it ?
Time to sell cinema shares, unless there is a flaw in your approach . . .

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StatGirl said...

Posted on Nov 09 2010 08:51 Just to round off yesterday lunchtime’s stats on this film: The "Box Office" link (above) also lists just London takings. So: £33,023 taken by 12 cinemas = £2751 p/cinema across 3 days. £2751 divided by 3 days = £917.31 p/day. With an average of say 2.5 showings a day = £366.92 per showing. Increase the average price per ticket slightly for Central London - say £9.50 - that makes an average audience of 38 people for the 3 busiest days of the most recent week. This is in keeping with the national average I posted yesterday lunch time.

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StatGirl said...

Posted on Nov 08 2010 13:02 I went and saw this with boyfriend and wasn’t impressed with it. Everyone’s allowed mistakes, and Simon Pegg’s made one appearing in this. Two stars seems generous. There seems a huge difference in opinion over this film, and also some people claiming the audience was full. There’s a simple way to resolve this - Time Out lists the past 3 days’ box office takings, and the number of cinemas where a film’s shown (click on menu bar at top of this screen) - this would account for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. At the point of writing (12noon on Mon 8 Nov 10): £942,894 at 390 screens in the UK. With ticket prices varying amongst the big cinema chains in the UK from £7.10 to £16.50 (Odeon West End) - quickly check online if you’re not sure, let’s say an average ticket costs £9. It’s a 15-rated film, so no child price tickets. Most cinemas have 4 showings a day (particularly at weekend), but nonetheless let’s trim that down to 2.5 showings a day across the weekend to account for more local cinemas. So here’s the math:
***
£942,894 divided by 390 screens = average of £2417.68 per cinema for the 3 days. Divide £2,417.68 by 3 days/evenings across the weekend. That’s £805.89p per cinema per day. Now divide that by the average 2.5 showings a day - that’s an average of £322.36 per cinema per day. Finally, divide £322.36 by the average ticket price of £9 - which gives an average audience of 35 people per showing. Anyone claiming this is a popular film has a fertile imagination or is l***** Changing any of the "averages" here still doesn’t make this a popular film, when a cinema usually holds a couple of hundred people - at least.
***
Like I say, I didn’t think it was good, and the revenue across the weekend prove it.

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molly said...

Posted on Nov 07 2010 21:49 funnily enough, i went to see this yesturday with my boyfriend and thought it was hilarious at times! i must agree with anthony, i thought it was quirky and original and very amusing and i thoroughly enjoyed the plot, there only seemed to be one unhappy viewer sitting along side me but i think it was because he felt un easy at the site of blood, guts and the dead and is generally a poopy person and lies on the internet to try and convince his girlfriend not to see a great movie... 5 stars!!! :D

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James said...

Posted on Nov 07 2010 21:36 Went to see this film with my girlfriend yesterday, and have been planning on seeing it for some time. Some of the jokes were quirky and the film had a fun feel, but it was boring and the acting was sub-par. I have enjoyed seeing Pegg's films, but his most recent has been disappointing.

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