Black Pond (2011) starring Chris Langham, Simon Amstell, Amanda Hadingue, Colin Hurley, Will Sharpe, Anna O'Grady, Helen Cripps directed by Tom Kingsley, Will Sharpe Movie Review

Black Pond (2011)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Chris Langham and Colin Hurley in Black Pond (2011)

Let The Dead Dog Lie

At the start of "Black Pond" we meet Tom and Sophie Thompson individually speaking to a never seen interviewer about an incident which at the same time we see press clippings about the Thompson family being killers. At this point we get the movies best line about how media can basically destroy a life, a line delivered by Chris Langham who back in 2007 was very much in the press for something which lead to him serving time. Unfortunately after this opening "Black Pond" not only lost me but to be frank bored me senseless and if it wasn't for someone else in the room finding it funny I would be rating this much lower than I am.

The thing is that "Black Pond" is a quirky comedy, but not the quirky comedy I tend to like but one which has an awkwardness and stilted side. What we watch is the strange situation which occurs which leads to the press headlines, we see how Tom meets the seamlessly harmless Blake on a walk and invites him home. We see how Blake, Tom and Sophie chat and how Blake stays the night with more talking. We also see Tom's daughters who live in London with a guy called Tim who has started seeing a strange therapist called Sacks and we have more talking, some more talking and even more talking plus a dead three legged dog.

Now if any of that sounds mildly entertaining then I suggest track down a copy of "Black Pond" and watch these people who are to be frank dysfunctional talk to each other and the camera. But if you prefer your humour more mainstream then give this a wide miss as unless you are into dysfunctional, alternative and frankly odd humour it will be the same hard slog which it was for me.

As to what happens well as I said at the start we see some press clippings and the movie meanders its way along slowly explaining them in a very off beat manner. Unfortunately the desire to know what is not enough to sustain you through what is a lot of frankly dull comedy.

What this all boils down to is that "Black Pond" did not do it for me one little bit and whilst I kind of enjoy different movies this was a bit too different for me.


LATEST REVIEWS