Blackbird

I have been an active cinemagoer for more than 30 years. I literally cannot tell you how many feature films, never mind shorts, I have seen in movie theatres in that time. I know because I keep them that I have several kilogrammes of tickets and stubs accumulated from across those decades. I use weight as a measure there because every effort to count them becomes an exercise in nostalgia, in remembering individual cinemas and even chains lost to the passage of time. I have spent whole days in cinema screenings, not only at festivals where Press & Industry showings can start before nine and late night strands finish well into the small hours. That trove of tickets doesn't include the solely electronic ones, the seats secured by lanyard, ones lost with wallets, grindhouse strips turned to pulp when left in washed pockets, those that have been dropped, dripped upon, diversely rendered unfit to retain even for a borderline hoarder like me. I say all this to make clear that I have spent a lot of time staring at the silver screen, so much so that I know the total number is so firmly into four figures that it may be closer to five.

Until yesterday, I had never had a screening to myself. Then I (alone) saw Blackbird.

That opening paragraph is messy and self-indulgent, an exercise in boasting, mythologising, aggrandisement. Making my solitary pursuit seem a noble endeavour, to the point that it might weary those encountering it. It does, however, play to one of my strengths, the occasional ability to turn a phrase.

Blackbird doesn't have that saving grace.

Written, directed, and starring Michael Flatley, this feels like the output of a sitcom plot about a summer camp for dads who want to be action movie stars. Playing Victor Blackley, a name chosen one assumes for its phonetic proximity to his own name and the title, he describes another as having a "rather narcissistic personality". His production company (Dancelord Films) has an animated logo that bookends the film, featuring a sketchy silhouette tapping away under a hat at a very specific angle. He himself dances only once in the film, if one excludes a gunfight preceded by "let's dance". That use of arms is not the only one, there's a frankly incredible brawl that presumably only ends with a sequence of punches to the head because Flatley's insurance wouldn't allow him to kick a man when he's down.

It also doesn't appear to allow him to pilot a borrowed vintage Jaguar E-Type in a gear other than first or on public roads, but a hat and scarf provide sufficient cover to allow an aerial shot to suggest it. It is one of several moments of supposed glamour where the gloss of sophistication feels more like the sheen of lukewarm grease, less Casino Royale than a sausage roll after a funeral.

Of course it starts with a dead wife, or rather fiancée. A shadowy spy organisation called The Chieftains, a graveside in the grounds of a luxurious stately home that's very clearly either a hotel or a golf course if not both. The beer pumps at the bar have had their logos covered, one of a number of moments of unproduct displacement. I'm sure the bottle of what was probably not white rum said Bat Vanilla less as tribute to a teetotal terror of Gotham's underworld than to avoid the attentions of Bacardi.

I spotted bits that were borrowed, and clumsily, from Swordfish, various Bond films, maybe even some outings of The Incredible Hulk. The fact that everything seems to happen at hotels that is reminiscent of John Wick, nor is the presence of gambling the only shockingly bad homage to Casablanca. The baddies are, and I believe I quote directly, "a secret society of war criminals called The Crusading Revolution". They're after "Libyan Formulas" that are held in a "hollow coin".

Except it's not a hollow coin, or at least not the concealed container of spycraft where precision machining turns a piece of change into a place where an SD card or microfilm could be hidden. It appears instead to be a coin with a hole in it, a qian or 'cash'. It even still appears to be in the little plastic holder it was shipped in off whatever bad guy corporation fulfils orders for things smaller than volcano bases or midget submarines.

It's one of an endless parade of small details that are off. Let's gloss over the stacked wish fulfilment of a secret agent retiring to manage a Caribbean resort frequented by figures like the 'Prince of Albania'. Ignore, for a moment, that the abolition of the united monarchies of Albania and Italy means that's not a real title, or that a few minutes online would let you track down the sole grandchild of Zog I. Instead let us focus on a worldview where equivalent figures include a 'Greek Shipping Tycoon' and a 'Mafioso' and, inevitably, Eric Roberts.

I mean, not Eric Roberts, Eric Roberts playing a mysterious businessman. One hesitates to suggest that since the passing of James Brown he has become the hardest working man in showbusiness, but I am halfway convinced that between yesterday and today five credits were added to his IMDB page. If you've seen any of the nearly 700 works he's been a part of you won't see his range tested. He bangs a table, doesn't eat some pasta, has some guys killed, the usual. I'd say he forms part of a love triangle with Flatley and Nicole Evans as Vivian but all the girls (or at least 75% of the named ones, and 66% of those living) love them a hotelier with some god awful cufflinks and a hat aligned with a protractor.

There's the torch singer Madeleine (a début for Mary Louise Kelly) who sings at least two of the Sinatra songs exhumed and reanimated to form part of this shambling mess. There's that dead fiancée, whose specific tragedy is recounted in flashbacks that feature Ian Beattie as Nick, a character whose dishevelment appears to involve being permanently damp. As part of the somehow persistent intelligence apparatus known as 'The Chieftains' Matiti (Anthony Chisholm) and Caz (Lara Lemon) are underserved delivering clumsily written exposition to our eponymous protagonist. There are others, but to be honest some of them only seem to exist to tend bar. There's a little amount of forgiven betrayal, a notionally tense standoff at what's called a shipyard but very clearly a boatyard, and a poker showdown where anyone who knows Hold'Em can see the pretty clearly telegraphed possibilities in terms of hands.

There might be a drinking game here. It's put together well enough, but given how often Flatley's face fills most of the screen one imagines that the three assistant directors and DoP had some input in framing the rest of it. Sam Roffey did cinematography for this, two movies with 'Krays' in the title and one of the Footsoldier sequence. Sam Roffey assistant directed on Horrible Histories, Comedy Central's Drunk History, and this which might earn some of the same adjectives, albeit unintentionally.

I'm not a fan of watching bad films for the sake of it. Indeed I think that's a disservice not only to those who've made a film that hasn't worked but also an opportunity cost for those who've made films that have. I won't argue that some might find delight in the way Flatley reads a line he himself wrote that goes, roughly, "hey look at me it's alright", in the same way that some might find delight in Tommy Wiseau quoting James Dean.

There are better films whose credits include roles like "insurgents", "bikini boat girls", and "Barbados church goer's" [sic]. Hell, some of those better films also have Eric Roberts, in fact it might be a legal requirement. There are better films that were made as instruments of rights preservation, or wish-fulfilment, or as acquisition vehicles or tax shelters. There are better films that were made on budgets less than the cost of two tickets to a 2023 Riverdance performance. That's just 50 euro, without the booking fees admittedly.

The thing is that it isn't bad as much as it has nothing good. Like a reduced for quick sale ham and cheese sandwich from a garage. It's not actively, immediately harmful. It won't do you any real good. It's bland, stodgy, ephemeral. It won't get you any loyalty card points. It just is, and will not be later.

I frequently go to the cinema alone, in much the same way that I don't read books in company. I bought a ticket for Blackbird having made a trip out to one of the few cinemas showing it. I paid actual money to see this, mostly so you don't have to. I opened this review by saying that this was the first time, genuinely, where I have seen a film and been the only person in the theatre. I reiterate it at the end for two reasons: it is the most notable thing about it; as I deserved to be.