Occasionally there are works deflating my love of movies. Some have been such horrible experiences they serve as a bench-mark for poor quality. Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie manages to reach the apex of lowest common denominator film-making.
Cheaply made with lashings of 70’s-style racism and homophobia, its meagre plot drowns in a sea of smutty vulgarity. What worked for its successful British TV incarnation doesn’t work for film with its ‘nudge-nudge wink-wink’ humour something even Benny Hill wouldn’t have touched.
Agnes Brown (Brendan O’Carroll) runs a family stall at a local market. Mother to several children, she does her best to put up with their antics. When learning a shady Russian businessman wants to turn the market into a shopping complex, she decides to defend her turf. Taking him to court, Agnes and her brood cause a huge furore as their case makes national headlines.
Like someone at a party telling totally inappropriate jokes, Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie is wince-inducing. The incoherent plot, shambolic direction and appalling gags magnify its origins as a lazy cash-in. Written by star O’Carroll, his attempts to turn it into an ode to his native Dublin fails to show off any of its local colour. Whilst his character of Agnes is meant to represent a typical Dubliner, it’s an ugly portrait. Glossed with a veneer of false sentimentality, this end of pier-style adult pantomime runs out of steam long before its very predictable conclusion.
Overshadowing the entire film is its offensive attitude. The disabled, homosexuals and various nationalities receive a drubbing from O’Carroll’s poisonous pen. Featured as grotesque stereotypes, the quality of their portrayal mirrors the comedic abattoir in which O’Carroll resides. Gags involving bestiality aren’t funny either, with this witless and mean-spirited production failing to reach higher than the bottom of the barrel from whence it came.
Mrs Browns Boys D’Movie is a deceptive and cruel beast. Behind its masque of hilarity lies a seething cesspit of crudity and malice. It’s a celluloid abomination richly deserving of its place in cinema’s Hall of Shame.
Reviewed by Patrick Moore
Twitter: @PatrickMoore14
Rating out of 10: 0
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