A Lenda de Barney Thomson

This is a dark comedy that gives genuine giggles. Suspend disbelief and sit back with some popcorn. The whole cast is great. Emma Thompson's role as the jaded mother of Barney is surprising, but her performance is outstanding.

If you appreciate a good black comedy as much as I do, you will enjoy this flick. It was well done. I give Carlyle a lot of credit for his directorial debut with an excellent performance by Emma Thompson, who was a riot.

Overall it was quite a nice ride, very entertaining stuff. If you don't have a sense of humor, you will not get this film at all.

This is a funny noir comedy, well made with an excellent cast. I really like Carlyle so I could not be completely impartial.

It is a film that gives you some laughs, but it does not let you to yell to miracle. I don't see it as a cult movie (like could be "The Full Monty" to me) as I have read here in the comments. It needed something more.

The actors and the dialogue are the masters here, but also the scenery, the photograph is taken care of. It is well packaged but the plot is not very thorough, it might have been better use the element of surprise and a few more dialog jokes would not hurt at all too. It is not very exciting and it feel like a little flat.

In any case, the movie has managed to put a smile on my face from beginning to end giving me a few very good laugh.

A good debut for Carlyle as a director with some space for improvement.

It should be 7/10 to me.

Greatly enjoyed this film. The weakest element is probably the story which is on the improbable end of the spectrum but, as long as you forgive the absurdity of the plot and just go with the flow, it's a thoroughly enjoyable 90 minutes. They could also possibly have done with a little more explanation of the back-story rather than jumping straight in - some might find it all a little complicated especially in the first half hour. The comedy is uniquely Glasgow and the language typically (and authentically!) blue. Visually it's all nicely shot with some of the more off-beat Glasgow landmarks featuring prominently. The acting is great with, as others have noted, standout performances by both Emma Thomson & Ray Winstone. I can't help thinking that Robert Carlyle as Director got better performances out of his other leads than he did out of Robert Carlyle (Actor) - perhaps the double responsibility of first time director and lead actor was a little too much to pull off. Not that his performance was bad, just a little lacking in finesse in places.

Minor criticisms apart, this is a very enjoyable movie and well worth watching.

Glasgow police Detective Inspector Holdall (Ray Winstone) leads the failing investigation into a serial killer who dismembers his victims. He gets demoted and has to report to rival Detective Inspector June Robertson (Ashley Jensen). Barney Thomson (Robert Carlyle) is a bitter mediocre barber and nobody likes his angry demeaner. His boss Wullie Henderson fires him and he accidentally kills Wullie. He brings the body home and his mom Cemolina (Emma Thompson) chops it up for unknown reasons.

Robert Carlyle tries his hand at directing. The material has some dark humor. The cast is stacked. It works to some extend. Carlyle needs a more daring visual eye to fully satisfy the material's dark surreal potential. It's a solid debut but he doesn't have an unique enough style. He remains a great actor but his directing career is still in doubt. At least, Emma Thompson seems to be having loads of fun. The movie sings whenever she's with Carlyle.