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Brighton Rock (2010)

Director: Rowan Joffe

Time Out rating

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31 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

It’s easy to get dewy-eyed over a great old novel and film like ‘Brighton Rock’ and shriek when you hear that a young pretender is remaking it and – sacre bleu! – setting it in another period. What Rowan Joffe has done with this bold and intelligent, if flawed and maybe a little doomed (like Pinkie’s poor old Rose), remake is to go back to both the 1938 book and 1947 noir and transfer many of their elements from Brighton in the 1930s to the same town in 1964. The original film starred Richard Attenborough as amoral seaside crim Pinkie Brown, and here a brooding Sam Riley (Ian Curtis in ‘Control’) takes the lead, only now mods and rockers are hassling the deckchair crowd by fighting on the seafront and the death penalty has just one year left to run it course.

Joffe’s moving of the story to 1964 is a fair enough cry for originality on his part, but it’s also a tacit admission that you can’t move Greene’s story any further forward in time without changing it radically. Pinkie is a murderer whose Catholic faith and fear of hell and damnation make him dread the death penalty. He courts and marries naive local waitress Rose (an excellent Andrea Riseborough), an accidental witness to his crime, simply so she can’t testify against him in court. All of this – the Catholic guilt, the dread of capital punishment, the innocence of Rose – wouldn’t play well on the other side of the 1960s youth revolution.

There’s a lot of smart thinking behind this film, but I’m not convinced the 1964 setting is entirely successful. At its worst, it feels like a superficial add-on – a chance for Riley to cruise along the seafront on a moped. There’s also the sense of a 1930s story playing out against a 1960s background: Pinkie’s boss, Spicer, played entertainingly by Phil Davies, and his gang of bovver boys feel very pre-war. But maybe that’s the point: the 1960s were a turning point but not everyone was swept up in the revolution immediately.

The new setting works best for Rose, and the scene when she goes out and buys a trendy dress to match her new feeling of womanhood and impress her unimpressed new husband is very effective. If anyone is left at sea, it’s Riley; his Pinkie is charismatic, but a little one note. It’s a shame, too, that we don’t hear Pinkie’s reaction to all the mods-and-rockers action around him. Surely he has an opinion on this?

Joffe’s other big change is to focus more than the 1947 film on the ‘romance’ between Pinkie and new wife Rose and allow his story to amble down more by-ways, some of them involving hard-nosed Ida (Helen Mirren), recast as Rose’s boss at Snow’s cafeteria, but still Pinkie’s chief tormentor. The result of this welcome change in emphasis is that the noir momentum of the Boulting brothers’ movie is lost in favour of a more sensitive, inquiring take on real human relations. Some may find this new ‘Brighton Rock’ a slower, less energetic experience as a result, but at least there’s more room for Joffe to explore the dirty bedsits and towering cliffs of Brighton with some exquisite photography from John Mathieson and production design from James Merifield – even if, unlike the Boulting brothers, he shoots most of his film in nearby, better-preserved Eastbourne.

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 2111: 3 – 9 February, 2011

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User reviews of this film

Ed Bliss said...

Posted on Feb 29 2012 05:04 After the first 45 boring minutes of this film I couldn't force myself to watch the rest of it. As I watched the plot develop my only reaction was: Who cares?

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Haydn said...

Posted on Feb 17 2012 22:51 I didn't get to see the original film and hadn't read the book either. In spite of some of the negative criticsm forthcoming by some reviewers, I have to admit to enjoying this 'new' version and would recommend it to others.

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mike mcnamara said...

Posted on Feb 05 2012 14:23 Dreadful. There was not one coherent, beleivable character in the film and the story line was equally vacuous, rambling and inconclusive. Can anyone imagine the story line really taking place or has anyone ever met anyone resembling these one dimensional, inexplicable characters?

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Natalie said...

Posted on Nov 03 2011 15:15 wow, truely terrible. I cared nothing for the actors if thats what they where. The extras where like robots with no emotion. The story line was boring and having read through the other comments it seems ther fear of catholisism and hell was totaly lost on me. I thought all that at the end was just weird and pointless?
Honestly I was so disapointed, what a waste of a couple of hours I would rather have watched paint dry.
Seriously people dont bother.

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Edward said...

Posted on Sep 05 2011 14:53 Not having seen the original, nor knowing anything about this film, I was thoroughly entertained and moved. Gorgeous set production,cinematography, and seat gripping action, twists and turns.. It has the feeling of a graphic novel..and the richness of characters as the movies such as 'Bugsby', but without the added prosthetics. Anytime you see people giving 1 star and 4 stars reviews, I would say 'go see that film'. Because great filmmaking is in the eye of the beholder..just sit back and enjoy this roller coaster ride..

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Peter Costley said...

Posted on Jun 02 2011 22:39 One might criticise the film 'Brighton Rock' but where on earth can you actual view it. My Odeon has no idea whether or not they will get it to show.

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M Pearle said...

Posted on May 23 2011 04:01 I hadn't read the book and found the movie reasonable enough. I found the token casting of a minority a bit jarring given the period, it seemed a bit forced.
Mirren was very good as Ida.

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ed said...

Posted on Apr 20 2011 16:02 A pity the central relationship didn't catch fire. There was no sense of peril or of the one sided love. More time was spent elsewhere in the film so when you stop caring. Sam Riley was fine as Pinkie but the denouement on Beachy Head was fumbled and silly. And it shoudl've pushed the "eternity & hell" a bit more, the Catholicism is a huge theme in the book... so the miracle at the end seemed forced and muted. John Hurt and Helen Mirren were out of place and Andy Serkis is a ham - only thing he's been well cast in is SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK N ROLL imo...
Great camera work , the sea at night in particular....
But a missed opportunity that didn't quite come together as planned...

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Martin said...

Posted on Mar 06 2011 20:30 Oddly, some people have defended this film. Somehow the clunky script; atrocious direction; sloppy acting and gormless cinematography have slipped them by. This hamfisted attempt at film making is akin to building a watch with bits of wood. Nothing works. Nothing coheres. And the whole dismal piece is all the worse for being British. One can't even blame the Americans. Unbelievably dreadful.

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scrumpyjack said...

Posted on Feb 27 2011 19:58 The front of Eastbourne is a superbly mothballed throwback to a more civilised age. The rest? decent, non threatning town. Brighton's front? GOD AWFUL. The rest? Soho in the 80's. Both fun during daylight. Nightfall? I know where Id rather be! Back to the film, spot on mike re the atmosphere. Shame about the director and the majority of performances.

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BILL said...

Posted on Feb 26 2011 22:17 What does your reviewer mean by 'better preserved' Eastbourne. Eastbourne is shabby and run-down so fitting for Sixties Brighton. Brighton has been transformed and its seaside stucco buildings RESTORED - and that includes the Royal Pavillion used as a backdrop in one scene. If you want to be nit picking, you could say that was not authentic for the Sixties when the building was covered in soot.

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Mike said...

Posted on Feb 24 2011 20:43 Based upon audience reviews, and mediocre reviews from critics, I wasn’t sure I’d like this film. I was concerned that Time Out had rated this film 3 stars on this site, which was bumped up to 4 stars on posters for the film. So I bit the bullet and went anyway. I was very, very pleasantly surprised. I was immediately struck by the superb (yes, superb) cinematography, which was consistent throughout. The story’s good, the script convincing, the settings, sets, buildings, pier, clothing and so on - all excellent – and great attention to detail. Best of all was Helen Mirren’s acting. Having appeared in some very mediocre films in the past decade, she shone as Ida. I don’t think I’ve seen her act so well since Elizabeth I, and in this she was certainly on a par with her role in The Long Good Friday. Highly recommended. (Confession – I haven’t seen the original film, nor read the novel – whether this is a good or bad thing, I don’t know.) The only change I’d make would be John Hurt – good though he is, he wasn’t particularly good in this. A generous four stars (which means I feel it should have been nominated for a couple of Oscars).

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Mike said...

Posted on Feb 15 2011 07:31 I appreciate stars/ratings will vary according to individual reviewers. However, "Brighton Rock" is being advertised on posters in London as being awarded 4 stars from Time Out, and not the 3 stars shown here. I thought I'd mention it as this has been raised before by audience reviewers about other films. Personally, when I see a 4 star review I expect the film to be an Oscar/Bafta/Golden Globe nomination/potential winner, and judging by the audience reviews above this film is far from that. We’re all aware going to the movies can be costly – and everyone wants to avoid poor films. Please can you explain why Time Out have awarded to different star ratings to this film. I have a photo of said poster on my phone if you want it emailed in.

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scrumpyjack said...

Posted on Feb 10 2011 21:39 SO much fine work (costume, locations, cinematography) wasted on awful performances, unconvincing script and far too old fat mods commanded by a cruddy Pinky. If it had been toyed with by the director then accepted that he wasn't ready for another 5 years or so.....but now we will never know. Pity. 5/10 (oh, it will be on BBC by the end of next year so give it a miss until then. I rarely say that about BBC films. 5/10

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Francis said...

Posted on Feb 09 2011 22:54 I thoroughly enjoyed this film. The downbeat playing of Pinkie was much a more realistic portrayal of a small town criminal than you find in most films. He is basically ignorant of life and human emotions. The playing of him against the naive but emotionally more mature Rose is at the centre of the movie and to me it works..

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