Film
INTERVIEW
NATURAL BORN NUTTER
You’d have to work hard to avoid actor MARC WARREN in the coming weeks. He tells Jay Richardson about all his many new projects and the appeal of playing unpleasant characters.
That cocksure grin and sneering lip curl have ensured that Marc Warren has been cast in some pretty noxious parts. A gang-rapist in Men Only, a scheming informer in State of Play and a violent skinhead in Boston Kickout, his current role in BBC drama Hustle, as cheeky Cockney conman Danny Blue, must be a welcome change. ‘They’re often the most interesting parts but I do play a lot of nutters,’ says the Northampton-born actor. I get bored of them a bit, so I tried to make him more Iikeable. I enjoyed it. I always thought acting was one big confidence trick anyway.’
In Hustle Warren was teamed with The Man From Uncle, Robert Vaughn. ‘lt’s not often you get to work with a legend,’ he says. ‘Charles Bronson died while we were filming so he became the last of The Magnificent Seven. I’m a great fan of that era, so I asked him all about
Steve McQueen. He was happy to sit chatting about all these people he knew. Absolutely
fascinating, but very unassuming and modest -
the ultimate professional.’
For all the capering fun of Hustle, two films released this month will confirm Warren’s screen persona as cinematic bad lad. In Song For a Raggy Boy he stars alongside Aidan Quinn and Iain Glen in a now familiar tale of Irish Catholic reform schools and evil Christian brothers, but before that he stars in Penny fina Goes Shopping Woolcock’s debut feature film The Principles of Lust. The experience of making Woolcock’s maniacal tale of retribution and indulgence knocked him sideways. He initially turned the
HIGHLAND COMEDY llll'tlLLER ONE LAST CHANCE (15) 96min 0.
A rural Scottrsh comedy thrrller — God preserve us all. The very thought of rt rs enough to make one's skrn crawl. It has to be sard. how ever. that the tact that thrs low budget Independent frlrn got made at all rs a mrracle. It's Just a shame that young Scottrsh trlmmakers seem unable to come up Wrth anythrng more rnherently rnterestrng than warmed over Forsyth wrth a SldC order of putretyrng cask stale whrsky rgalore!)
In some arse bag of a Hrghland vrllage. Frt/ and Nellre — two unemployed and unemployable no marks lJamre Srves and larn Robertsonl — hang around the pub where therr best trrend Seany rKeyrn McKrdd) works. Frtz rs desperate to seCUre a place rn a nursrng
30 THE LIST 11"; Mar 7002
Highland yarns and yawns
home tcr hrs father who seems to be sutterrng trom a degeneratrve brarn drsorder. and to do thrs he needs 5‘1 .000 Wrth whrch to brrbe the proprretor. to get thrs money Frt/ has to submerge hrrnsell and hrs trrends rn a crazy caper rnvolvrng found gold and the local curlrng club.
Patchy doesn't even begrn to do rustrce to thrs rnept comedy thrrller - moments of whrrnsy all too readrly grve way to mrsrudged scenes of vrolence. Srves seems unable to act hrmselt out of hrs own peCulrar monotone delrvery and McKldd and Robertson try therr best to Create some energy from the drab scrrpt. But all rs lost when producer Dougray Scott starts mrncrng around lrke a Masonrc Steptoe. Depressrng. (Paul Date) I Selected release from Frr 72 Mar. See rntervrew, page 29.
Marc Warren in The Principles of Lust
script down ‘because it was too similar to my life’ the club and just shot it. Certain things you can’t - quite a confession in the circumstances. A hardcore hedcnist, Billy (Warren) is responsible for dragging writer manque Paul (Alec Newman) outlook on life? through a seedy mire of drugs, bare-knuckle boxing kids and sleazy self-gratification. Talking exactly what my life had been like when we were about his performance in one sex scene in particular renders this otherwise candid interviewee uncharacteristically coy. ‘Yeah, well, y’know. You saw it. It was always in really want to carry on doing or go back to.’ the script that we turned up to a swingers club. I I l’r‘rrrcrp/e of Lust rs on selected release from Frr l2 can’t really remember a lot about it, but we mixed with a lot of people who really were from
fake, can you?’ Christ. So can he empathise with Billy’s
‘Without wishing to sound too wanky, that was
filming - it was an experience more than a job and it kind of drove us all mad. Watching it, I felt yeah, God, that was great, but this is not something I
Mar. Song l- or A Haggy Boy rs out on 2 Apr; llust/e rs on BBC/, lue, 0pm. See rev/ew. page (if.
Pt Ol’lt ~SMU(}(3LIN(3 DRAMA SPARE PARTS (15) 87 min 000.
Kr‘sko rsn't the sort of town you trnd rn tourrst guidebooks. On the border between Slovenra and Croatra. rt's a run down rndustrral centre and the locatron tor a nuclear pox‘xer plant. It rs also hope to former speedway champ l udvrk rl’eter‘ Museusku. a paunchy, rnrrldle aged '-.'.rr<lo‘.‘.'er who makes hrs lux'rrxg ler‘r‘,'rtg rllegal rrnrnrgrants across the border rnto Italy. Hrs boss sends nrm a youngster. Rudr lAlJosa Kovacrcl. as an assrstant and the latter soon learns that rn therr trade 'having a guilty conscience rs a waste of time.
Wrrtten and drrected by Slovenran lrlrnrnaker Damgan Ko/ole. Snare R'rr‘ts rs a lo\.'.'»-key r)eor)le-smugglrng drama whrch takes the perspectrxe of srr:a.‘l~trme trattrckers. whrle rrnrnersrng you rn therr' even/rim; routrnes. [)ramatrc moments such as a young Macedonran woman berng pressured rnto sell=ng her t)()(l\, for food and medrcrne. or an Atrrcan lamrly sultocatrng to death rn a car boot. are (:hrllrng precrsely because they are presented as banal occurrences. Ko/ole expertly captures the grrmy. run down atmosphere of Krsko Itself. and refuses to make Judgements about the actrons ot hrs character‘s. Nor does the rexelatren of a terminal rllness feel lrke a cheap luck to make us ‘teel' tor the central character: a staunch natronalrst. Ludvrk contrnues to rage agarnst the \crrrler x'xor'ld, hoprng that 'Slovenra doesn't ]()lll tuckrng Europe!‘ that a tentatrx’e trrendshrp emerges between hrrn and Rudr offers a glrmrner ol optrmrsm. although the trlm's trrtal shot suggests how the cycle of explortatron wrll contrnue. vlom [)awsonr I FI/lll/KNISO. Edinburgh from PH 12 Mar.
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Speeding away to asylum