Two out of
Five stars
Running time:
107 mins
Enjoyably rubbish drama with a better-than-the-film-deserves performance by Brendan Gleeson and some deliriously bonkers moments.
What's it all about?
Directed by John Boorman, The Tigers Tail stars Brendan Gleeson as Dublin property developer Liam O'Leary, who's run into a bit of financial trouble thanks to an ambitious scheme to build a stadium. However, his troubles don't end there: his marriage to his glamorous wife Jane (Kim Cattrall) is on the rocks; his teenage son (Gleeson's real life son Briain) is turning into a rabid anti-capitalist; and on top of all that, the doppelganger that Liam thinks he's been hallucinating turns out to be real and trying to steal his identity.
The Bad
The title refers to the Celtic Tiger (meaning Ireland's booming economy) and it's clear that Boorman is attempting to make some sort of symbolic statement about the rich / poor divide, but all that gets rather lost as the film quickly descends into unintentional hilarity via a series of increasingly ridiculous twists and turns.
The script basically requires you to believe that all Liam's double needs to do in order to pass himself off as Liam is wear the same suit and say as little as possible. It also tries to get away with an extremely dodgy sequence which suggests that all Jane really wanted from Liam was a little sexual aggression, something the double has no qualms about providing.
The Good
To be fair, Gleeson is terrific in his dual roles – without him, the film would be almost unwatchable. The rest of the cast do their best, but the less said about Kim Cattrall's Oirish accent, the better.
That said, the film is strangely compelling despite its rubbishness, because you're never quite sure which outrageous direction the film will take next.
Worth seeing?
Ultimately, however, despite some inspired lunacy, The Tigers Tail doesn't really work and you're only going to enjoy it if you're a connoisseur of the bad movie genre.