I Know You Know (2009)

Set in South Wales in 1989, I Know You Know tells the story of single parent father Charlie Callaghan (Robert Carlyle) and his eleven-year-old son Jamie (newcomer Arron Fuller). Written and directed by Human Traffic's Justin Kerrigan, what is remarkable about this film is that it is actually an autobiographical narrative based on his own upbringing.

The film starts with Charlie and Jamie's return to Wales. Though their hometown is familiar and they have elderly relations nearby, it's clearly a step down from what they are used to, and Jamie doesn't want to go to the local secondary school, but he knows he must grin and bear it - and even the bully who taunts him on a daily basis - because his father has an important job to do there. This job sees him embroiled in covert activities, seemingly against the new satellite TV company that is being rolled out nationwide, and the payday he promises will be big. However, it appears that there are people in town who want to stop Charlie from concluding his espionage mission; they follow his every move and he is so fearful for his life that he goes everywhere armed with a gun. As Jamie discovers the extent of his father's secret existence, he pledges to be utterly supportive of him - but is the real truth of Charlie's existence more dangerous for each if them than the boy could ever imagine?

Being autobiographical, Kerrigan's film is clearly a real labour of love, and one that took several years to get off the ground. Its final realisation may be hampered by a small budget more at home to a one off TV drama than an actual feature film, but the beating heart at the centre of the narrative more than makes up for any shortcomings. Combined with impressive performances from Carlyle and the young Fuller in his film debut, I Know You Know is an emotional, heartstring-tugging ode to the bonds between father and son. It's a film you can't really talk about too much without giving the plot away, so I'll just say watch it if you can.

Go Now (1995)

Originally shown as part of the BBC's 1995 'Love Bites' season of one-off films (the excellent Loved Up starring Ian Hart and Lena Headey was also from this season) Go Now is a passionate and heartfelt film about the impact multiple sclerosis has on a young man and his relationship with his girlfriend. Starring Robert Carlyle and Juliet Aubrey, Go Now was written by Jimmy McGovern and MS sufferer Paul Henry Powell and directed by Michael Winterbottom. With such talent both in front of and behind the cameras it should come as no surprise to hear that the film went on to win several awards. Available at long last from Simply Media DVD, a pound from each sale goes to The MS Society UK.

Carlyle stars as construction worker and talented amateur footballer Nick Cameron whose life seems further blessed when he meets Karen (Aubrey) on a night out with his mate, played by James Nesbitt - who has less luck pulling Karen's mate, played by Sophie Okonedo.

But cracks start to appear in the happy ever after when Nick starts to experience numbness, double vision and a lack of energy. Several nervous visits to specialists confirm the worst and, as MS sets in, Nick begins to sink into depression as he loses his job, his sport and his libido. Angry at the hand fate has dealt him, Nick begins to lash out at Karen and begs her to leave him. Despite her love for him, will Karen comply with his wishes?

This electrifying film benefits greatly from the unsentimental and non-manipulative approach from the director, writers and the cast. This isn't some Oscar baiting Hollywood production that believes disability is the epitome of acting and a shoo-in for an award, it treats the highs and lows with the same approach, ensuring Go Now isn't the downer you may expect. Indeed, Go Now is often very funny thanks to the laddish humour of the football team and it is also romantic (and more authentic) as any love story. This even handed attitude means we get to know and care for Nick and Karen long before the MS storyline sets in, aided by the superb acting of Carlyle and Aubrey, which ensures the pitfalls that await them come with enough emotional heft for the viewer to invest in. The stakes are high, and the film doesn't shy away from the repercussions Nick's self-sacrifice invokes in Karen's behaviour either in a further example of how far removed from Hollywood Go Now actually is.

Watching Go Now again after 20 or so years is a pleasant nostalgic experience too as it captures something of the mid '90s beautifully. Shot on location in Bristol, it even features a cameo from Tricky in one bar/club scene, and boasts a fine supporting cast of familiar faces from TV of the day. This is a rich film with a direct line to your heart and marked Winterbottom down as a director with an unerring ability to depict emotions and complex situations in a refreshingly honest, realistic way that avoids cliche and predictability.

T2 Trainspotting (2017)

Choose life. And then live it. For twenty years.

Because you have to have lived a bit to appreciate what this film is trying to say. You have to have been a teen or twentysomething when Trainspotting came out to appreciate this - which is why there are some sniffy reviews in some corners of the web from numpties who were filling their nappies  back in '96. More than any other sequel I can currently recall, T2 has matured with its audience and reflects where they are likely to be at right now. Whereas Trainspotting will perhaps always appeal to teens/twentysomethings of any generation, I think you have to have a bit of experience under your belt, you have to be 35 and upwards, to appreciate this.

And yes, it's got a sombre reflective edge for times passed, but it's still a great fun ride. It's probably the most fun I've had in the cinema for some time too, with some genuinely laugh out loud moments such as the William of Orange pub scene, and the moment when Renton and an increasingly exasperated Begbie inadvertently reunite in the club toilets. And the scene where Spud watches two youths race down the road to Regent Bridge gave me actual chills.

Spud is still an ugly/beautiful hapless goof, Sickboy is still a scuzzy handsome chancer, Renton is still a deeply charismatic bastard and Begbie is still the scariest urban psycho to wear a moustache since Yosser Hughes. It was good to see them again. Trainspotting was a remarkable opportunity, this thankfully is not the betrayal.

Antonia Bird: From EastEnders To Hollywood

At last, three years after her premature demise from cancer at the age of just 62 and following on from a BFI retrospective earlier this month, Antonia Bird gets the tribute and recognition she deserves with this superb documentary, From EastEnders To Hollywood from Susan Kemp.

It's hard to work out why Antonia Bird is so overlooked; certainly the number of awards and plaudits her work gained would suggest she should be as fondly remembered as Alan Clarke and the like, but that is sadly not the case. Kemp's film places gender at the heart of Bird's story, suggesting that the lack of appreciation points the way to a much wider issue concerning gender inequality in film and television, a claim which is very much asserted by Bird's good friend, the actor and director Kate Hardie.

Kemp’s documentary - shown on BBC4 last night alongside a 1986 episode of EastEnders directed by Bird, and her 2000 film Care - is both extremely detailed regarding Bird's impressive and groundbreaking career, as well as being firmly in keeping with Bird's own beliefs and political stance. I love that the film chose not to follow the usual linear structure of early days to final days, to instead hit the ground running with an exploration of one of Bird's finest works, Safe; a 1993 BBC2 film concerning the plight of the homeless on the streets of London. In choosing this as her starting point, Kemp is not only paying tribute to one of Bird's most satisfying and important signature pieces, she is also addressing the inequality that remains at the heart of our society in the same manner that Bird did. Homelessness has risen once again since David Cameron entered Number 10 six years ago and is showing no sign of decreasing. This pressing problem is neatly paralleled here, especially with the inclusion of archive footage from parliament which shows present Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn haranguing the then PM Margaret Thatcher from the backbenches regarding this extreme poverty. It's meaning is clear; the problem continues and therefore the fight must do also. But worryingly, we do not have many filmmakers of Bird's calibre with a voice in primetime mainstream television any more. Much has been made recently of the desperate need to protect the BBC from Tory pressures, but the BBC lost its independent spirit a long time ago and is already gagged by government. It's telling that whilst it was commonplace to see such a polemical drama as Safe at 9pm on BBC2 in the early 90s, no such programme could be made now - or indeed, screened; BBC4's tribute to Bird last night neglected to show this film, after all.

Equally, it's worth pointing out that whilst the programmes Bird helped shape and create - EastEnders and Casualty - still exist some thirty years later, they do so in a very watered down, bland and acceptable state, devoid of the politics and anger that originally made them the success they were. Witness Casualty creator Paul Unwin discuss the 'Socialist, feminist, anti-racist, anti-Tory' roots of the medical drama and compare them to the vapid, kiss-among-the cubicles soap it is now and despair at how far down the road we've reached, and how a director like Bird would never even get a break today. 

The documentary, as the title implies, takes us through the entirety of Bird's career from her days at the Royal Court staging plays by Hanif Kureishi and Jim Cartwright, to '80s and early '90s TV and into feature films, including an unhappy, hampered stint in Hollywood with 1995's Mad Love, and back to TV again.  Kemp gains testaments from friends and colleagues such as Kate Hardie, Robert Carlyle, Mark Cousins, Irvine Welsh, Ruth Caleb, Paul Unwin and Ronan Bennett, with Hardie and Carlyle perhaps providing the most insightful comments, speaking with great fondness for their friend and frustration at the lack of widespread appreciation afforded her now and the many lost projects; most notably the Burke and Hare-inspired The Meat Trade, starring Carlyle with a screenplay by Welsh remains the most tantalising missed opportunity. Carlyle's appreciation of her talent is at its height when he discusses the film Ravenous, marvelling at how, when the original director left, Bird arrived (at his behest) to prep the film in just one week, commencing shooting almost instantly.

Overall, there is some suggestion that Bird's reputation as a political filmmaker may have seen her lose work as the industry became more toothless in the face of late New Labour and ConDem manipulation, whilst others address the difficulties facing female directors. Kemp herself raises the question that Bird's work was often uniquely masculine, and Carlyle confesses it has occurred to him but he is unable to provide an answer as to why, whilst Hardie believes she simply had to go where the work was, citing the projects that failed to get developed. 

If I had to make one criticism of this film it is that very little light is shed on Bird's private life, the focus is very much on the professional. However, there's no denying that the Antonia Bird Kemp presents us with is a truly admirable figure with an idealism and principles all too rare in the industry she found herself blazing a trail in.

She remains much missed.

Safe (1993)

Safe is another one of those brilliant single dramas that the BBC used to make (it appeared in the BBC2 Screen Play series) that has remained with me ever since its initial transmission. And with good reason; Safe is an incendiary piece about the plight of homeless youth in London which deservedly bagged a plethora of awards including the BAFTA for Best Single Drama for its director Antonia Bird and writer Al Ashton - two talents who both died far too soon (Ashton in 2007 aged 49 and Bird in 2013 aged 62)

The story concerns Gypo (Aiden Gillan) and Kaz (Kate Hardie) who roams the streets, clipping punters (conning them into thinking Kaz is on the game, taking their money and arranging to meet them in the lobbies of cheap hotels before running off) and, if possible, spend the odd night in the local shelter run by George Costigan's Sean. 

Ashton presents his characters with great ambiguity. There's no answers to be had here, just heartache as the warts and all aspects of their lives and their frustration towards the hopelessness of their situation leads them to increasingly explosive conduct including self mutilation, criminal damage and arson. It could be argued that some of the characters are deeply unsympathetic or just plain hard to relate and emphathise with and Gypo is a prime example of this, being a damaged yet cocksure young man who has been granted a flat of his own but refuses to live there, preferring instead the streets and shelter - and therefore ultimately the company this provides him with. Principally this company means the defiant but troubled Kaz (superbly played by Kate Hardie, though not Ashton's choice; he originally wrote the part specifically for a mixed race performer) whom he has a complicated relationship with; he seems to love her and wants to be physically intimate with her but she appears frigid towards his advances and we later learn that she is like this because she was habitually raped by her mother's boyfriend and her mother, refusing to believe her daughter, kicked her out onto the streets. But there's also a great supporting cast of homeless characters played by the cream of young, naturalistic British talent including Andrew Tiernan, Marsha Thomason and, most spectacularly, Robert Carlyle as a self harming, bisexual Glaswegian hard nut. All of the characters seem preoccupied with the play's motif and the notion of safety; 'Safe' is a phrase routinely used to mean 'good', but its clear that the streets are not safe for these damaged individuals, just as its equally clear there's no real alternative for them either as they're left to blindly rail and rage against the impractical system until they literally become spent. 

A very emotional and deeply physical piece, Safe continued to prove that Ashton was a truly great contemporary voice (he had previously penned Alan Clarke's The Firm and the drugs drama Alive and Kicking) and, in giving Bird her debut after cutting her teeth on those early groundbreaking and polemical episodes of Casualty and EastEnders, ensured she hit the ground running. It also contains a brilliant and fitting score from the legend that is Billy Bragg.

This film remains unavailable on DVD and can only be watched on YouTube. I found it rather ridiculous that one of the UK's finest directors and one of its best writers didn't receive a season of their respective works following their deaths and equally, I find it strange that such award winning work has now become so little appreciated/little seen.

"Hug Mah Rod!"

- Nosty (Robert Carlyle)

To get the BBC to consider repeating some of these classic plays please sign the petition I started here

The Legend of Barney Thomson (2015)

Based on a novel by Douglas Lindsay, The Legend of Barney Thomson is an impressive directorial debut from actor Robert Carlyle; a quirky and grubby love letter to his native Glasgow - it's certainly good to have him back on these shores making small, cultish movies.  

Starring as the eponymous Thomson, Carlyle is a modern day Scottish variant on Sweeney Todd: a hapless, discontented barber pushed further to the back of the shop because of his lack of patter who uses the tools of his trade to diminish the local population. It's all an accident of course, at least initially; a skirmish with his boss who wants to sack him concludes with him getting a pair of scissors embedded in his chest. Luckily for Thomson, Scotland is currently in the grip of a particularly unpleasant serial killer, who posts dismembered body parts to the constabulary (a leg here, a hand there, a cock and an arse) represented by DI Holdall, an increasingly embittered cockney fish-out-of-water played by Ray Winstone, and his rival, the ambitious, modern thinking and officious DI Robertson (Ashley Jensen), who are stymied for a lead on the killer's identity. 

Much of the buzz around Barney Thomson was the casting of Emma Thompson as Carlyle's character's raddled bingo playing old mother Cemolina, despite Thompson being just two years older than Carlyle in real life. It's a wonderfully eccentric stroke, and the performances - Thompson drenched in prosthetics - matches it, so its easy to see why this became the film's main draw and point of interest. Yes, it's a 'big' performance but, as the nightmare mother from hell, it really couldn't really be anything else so it would be churlish and rather joyless to complain. It also perfectly compliments the increasingly jittery (and very funny) turn from Carlyle as things get disastrously out of hand.

But its worth pointing out that Carlyle didn't just stop there when it come to pulling together a strong cast; there's also a delightfully foul mouthed cameo from Tom Courtenay as the police chief, Martin Compston, James Cosmo, Stephen McCole, Barbara Rafferty and that wonderfully underrated Scottish acting legend, Brian Pettifer as Charlie, Thomson's friend; a man who has to ask Thomson to go on the fairground rides with him for fear of looking like a paedophile going on them alone. Fair enough too; with his tight curls, '70s frilly shirt, suit and bowtie, he cuts the kind of figure that you really wouldn't trust with your kiddies.

If all this sounds OTT, it's pretty accurate, but to call this outlandish would actually do it something of a disservice. Carlyle, perhaps taking a leaf out of Irvine Welsh's book, creates a realistically drab and curious Glasgow that is only marginally heightened. For example, I could imagine someone like Charlie existing there, as much as the Henderson barbershop still being a going concern. Granted, some of the characterisation, the more outre moments of gore and the denouement may occasionally threaten to tip the action into more surreal and more familiar waters, but Carlyle's hand remains firmly on the tiller to keep the authentic localism and sense of place largely intact. The lounge music soundtrack - all Acker Bilk, Engelbert Humperdinck and Roy Orbison - really helps with this, along with Fabian Wagner's sublime and eye catching cinematography.

Based on this evidence, I really hope Carlyle steps behind the camera again soon. 

Summer (2008)

Summer sees two veterans of Ken Loach films, Robert Carlyle and Steve Evets team up to play lifelong friends Shaun and Daz in a deeply heartfelt, sombre drama set in Nottingham.

Once the town bad boys, we witness their friendship through three time periods; their innocent childhood riding around on bikes and getting into scrapes - some minor some major, their adolescence when love and alcohol enter into the mix and Shaun's turmoil at school with seemingly undiagnosed dyslexia and uncaring teachers is alleviated by his feelings for local lass Katy (as a teen played by Joanna Tulaj, and as an adult, Racheal Blake) and lastly their approaching middle age which sees Shaun serve as carer to the now wheelchair bound and alcoholic Daz, whose days are numbered due to terminal cirrhosis. 

Director Kenny Glanaan, working from a screenplay by Hugh Ellis, delivers a tale of regret and empty lives thanks to missed or completely, purposefully ignored opportunities in a simple yet utterly authentic and honest way. It's a great study in friendship and loyalty, guilt and responsibility that is thankfully subtly done rather than depicted in such a way as to beat the viewer of the head with. The key to the story is of course threaded through the three timelines, which appear on occasion almost like ghosts to the middle aged and suitably haunted looking Shaun. These interwoven strands come together hazily and lazily like the summer itself in an especially effective manner which explores the reason for the strong bond that unites the central pair, and just why Shaun is so devoted to his friend - a  reason that remains compellingly hidden to the audience until the very end. This is a bold and leisurely move that benefits the narrative and the structure of the piece extremely well, allowing us to explore first and foremost the relationships between the characters, helping us get to know them - which is important, and drawing out their three dimensional nature as a result.

Summer explores the gritty side of life and benefits from the extremely naturalistic performances of its cast (including an extremely good performance from Carlyle which he himself claims he is very proud, and rightly so) acting just as one would expect such characters to do in the real world. This is especially true in how the film depicts 'the sins of the father' trope; Evets' son, played by Michael Socha, is clearly going off the rails just as he had once done thanks to the booze yet the film refuses to use this opportunity to serve as propaganda or show him through the narrative the error of his ways. Mistakes are made in reality and Summer is clearly intent to simply record reality as close as possible. As a result there's no pandering to the sentimental or the schmaltzy, no sweet cinematic reconciliation or Hollywood style manipulative tugs at the heart strings. Yes this is a film which features disability and alcoholism, but it does so in an authentic matter of fact manner in keeping with film makers like the aforementioned Ken Loach or Shane Meadows, who as a native Midlander is of course no stranger to setting films in this part of the world.

If I have any minor gripes about Summer it is that the actors playing the young Shaun and Daz (Sean Kelly and Joe Doherty) great though they are, are too dissimilar to Carlyle and Evets and that on occasion there are some sloppy moments that take you out of the action; for example, we see one scene play out in real time which has Carlyle ask a receptionist if he can see Katy, who is now a successful solicitor. The receptionist goes off to check and seems to have Carlyle's full name and reason for attending that day, despite never having asked him. But these are minor gripes in what is an otherwise interesting low budget film, the kind that I'd like to see Carlyle do more of nowadays because its the best I've seen him for some time and clearly where his heart really lies.

Great Scot

Irvine Welsh and his creations, the cast of Trainspotting

RIP Antonia Bird

Very sad and surprising news today, the British film and television director Antonia Bird has passed away aged just 54. Bird, a devotee of Ken Loach and a socially aware film maker in her own right, carved a brilliant and striking career out for herself starting at the Royal Court, and into television as one of the original directors of BBC's Casualty and EastEnders. She moved into film, directing Jimmy McGovern's polemic Priest which would begin her long association with star and 4Way Films business partner Robert Carlyle (which she set up with him, Irvine Welsh and Mark Cousins). They would go on to work together in the gangster film with a political conscience Face (which I've previously blogged about) and the blackly comic horror Ravenous. She directed the Hollywood film Mad Love and several stand out, award winning one off TV dramas such as Safe, Care, Rehab and The Hamburg Cell. Most recently she directed the brilliant BBC series The Village which starred John Simm and Maxine Peake and was one of the finest dramas on TV this year.

She passed away peacefully in her sleep following a battle with a rare anaplastic thyroid cancer.

RIP.

Face (1997)

Some people don't like this film.

Some people are idiots.

On the surface, Face is a typical London gangster movie; a group of five men break into a security depot which they believe will have a pay off of 3 million pounds. However when they come to divvy up they realise they got nowhere near that amount. They go their separate ways but have to reunite when they realise someone is intent on stealing their money and killing any one of them who gets in their way. But who is robbing the robbers?

It's hard to make something different in the tired London gangland/heist genre, but Antonia Bird's film from Ronan Bennett's script manages to do just that by incorporating a distinctly socially aware and political edged atmosphere into the world of blags, double crosses and revenge. Made in 1996, the film is as much about the previous two decades, the London criminal scene of the 1970s and also how Thatcher's 1980s crushed the hope out of young people who wanted to make a difference and, in the case of our central character Ray (Robert Carlyle), instead decide to hit the establishment where it hurts, by robbing their banks.  Watching it now it's an interesting snapshot of a tide about to turn, filmed as it was just before the landslide Labour victory of 1997.

Bird gathers together a brilliant ensemble cast including her regular Carlyle (he'd previously appeared in Priest and Safe and would go on to star in Ravenous , he also runs 4 Way Films with her) Ray Winstone (remember when he could and actually did act? He's spellbinding here) Phil Davis, Steve Waddington, Lena Headey and Blur frontman Damon Albarn making his acting debut (he would later provide the soundtrack to Ravenous) Also in supporting roles are the legend that is Peter Vaughn, Sue Johnston and other Bird regulars Andrew Tiernan (Safe) and Christine Tremarco (Priest) 

Well directed, Bird knows to let the pace of a film find itself and doesn't talk down to the audience with jump cuts or overly obvious close ups. The cinematography is very good, creating a real atmosphere for the piece and benefiting from genuine London locations. I also really like the grey grimy look the film has, with only the occasional flash of colour such as the yellow boiler suits in the film's impressive robbery scene. The soundtrack is especially memorable and rather eclectic (Paul Weller, The Clash, Billy Bragg, Death In Vegas, Longpigs, Pigforce, Puressence) but equally Bird knows when to let a scene go on in silence. It's been some time since Antonia Bird made a film for cinema release (and indeed has only recently returned to TV with the BBC's excellent The Village) but I hope that she will make more for the big screen soon. It's an unfair criticism from some quarters that the film is a bit 'TV movie', a phrase used rather insultingly. You have to remember what kind of meagre budget Bird was working with here, and the fact she managed such themes and a new slant to the format on a shoestring and at 100 minutes is to be applauded. 

So why do some people dislike it? Well I guess it's not the Guy Ritchie mockney shenanigans that some audiences expect from the genre. There's more heart and intelligence involved behind Face.

Riff-Raff (1991)

Film 4 have this week been having a mini Ken Loach season to celebrate the premiere of his documentary Spirit of '45. Now I've seen quite a lot of Loach's work, but on sitting down to Riff-Raff, I have to admit that I was not actually sure if I'd seen it. If I have I presume it must have been around the time it was released/when I was very young, as it's the kind of film my dad would have probably watched. So, with this uncertainty in mind, I'm going to have to class it as a first watch. I'm very grateful to Film 4 for 'introducing' me to it.

Riff-Raff is essentially Loach's attempt at updating/making Robert Tressell's The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, a landmark and polemic piece of classic literature depicting the building trade of the early 1900s. It is Loach exploration of the same manual work and working class conditions in the death throes of Thatcherism that proves that the novel's resonance and reaction to the unjust society of it's day hadn't gone away some 70+years later and, sadly, it still remain with us now.

Loach's ability to nurture some genuinely realistic and understated performances is just as striking here as it is in any of his films. The breakout ones are of course Robert Carlyle, then largely unknown, and Emer McCourt  as the two leads. Ricky Tomlinson (a former builder himself who was sent to prison for strike action for better working conditions in the 1970s) shines in a strong supporting role as the Scouse politically aware builder. 

Tomlinson has since become an actor I baulk at whenever he appears in film and TV as he's become something of a stereotype and insulting cliche. Tomlinson of the last 15 years is a short hand for the worst kind of excesses of sentimental Liverpudlian and/or working class male that probably doesn't really exist beyond the media's depiction, but he's absolutely genuine here perhaps because he's largely playing a version of himself.  Not for one moment do I cringe at his appearance in this film, as I'd normally do, because I actually know the kind of rough, honest, gentlemanly keen for fair play scousers (or working class blokes in general) that he represents here. Not even the big comic scene he gets here -  that one could argue created the mould for him, pictured above -  detracts from this, in fact it serves to enhance it. This is no heightened imitation and as such it's rewarding to see. It's also interesting to spot an incredibly young looking Peter Mullan.

Ultimately like much of Loach's work the film treads a familiar path, indeed for anyone who has seen his later film The Navigators (which looked at the conditions of railways workers during the last days of nationalisation and subsequent privatisation) this may feel rather like Déjà vu, especially as both feature an avoidable, unfair tragedy as a key dramatic plot point towards their respective climaxes. But the message is still a clear and sympathetic one, and a thought provoking and entertaining 90 minutes will be had. Certainly it puts one in mind of just how healthy British independent film was in the early 90s with Loach and Mike Leigh at the helm and with Carlyle serving as a kind of buffer here with Danny Boyle just around the corner.

Just one thing, as much as I admire Stewart Copeland (as previous Theme Time blog posts will testify) I'm not sure his score works here. I keep expecting Edward Woodward's Equalizer to wander onto the building site!

More Than Enough

Ok, here's the thing; I haven't watched all of the film today. I did however see the film at the cinema when it originally came out (a staggering 13 years ago - where has that gone?) and a few times since. What I have done today is watched the opening sequence again. Because frankly, that's the best part of this bloated entry in the Bond series. Isn't it?

Watching it at the cinema (Warrington, 1999, with my sister - a massive Brosnan fan; I despair) I was bowled over by the sheer scope and spectacle of the opening sequence. For a long time the pre credit opener had been a mini movie in itself but TWINE went one further in making it the longest pre credit opening sequence in Bond (so far) and by staging enough bangs, explosions, double crossing, globe trotting, sex, comedy and chases (from foot to motorboats on the Thames, to London road and ultimately to a hot air balloon above the then infant Millennium Dome) to make a Bond movie right there off the opening bat.

At the time I was stunned. As the sequence began to close with Bond gripping a hold of the Dome structure, clearly beaten and broken whilst Garbage's excellent and suitably retro sounding theme tune brassily pumped out in pleasing cinema stereo, I took a breath. Assaulted by such a visual and audio onslaught of riches. I was, to quote the awful pun, in 00 Heaven. From then on, I long believed this was the finest opener to any Bond movie.

Though the film itself was pants. 

Of course it was pants. What could possibly come along in the 1 hour and 40 minutes that followed to top that sequence? Robert Caryle was good, but his Begbie in Trainspotting was scarier! And fellow Scot also pretending to be a Russian, Robbie Coltrane was wasted. Oh and Brosnan was still a weak and too smug Bond. Let is not even speak of Denise Richards in her Lara Croft kit with an implausible name even for Fleming.

Watching the opening again today, I felt like I'd been transported back, Christmas Carol style, to a childhood Christmas, only to find it wasn't as great as I'd remembered. It couldn't be. These things live in your head after all. Not that the spectacle wasn't still brilliant it was. But crucially, it was too much. What I thought was the only redeeming feature of this film actually proved to be its downfall, and very nearly the whole Bond series downfall too. It's too pumped, too overblown, too self satisfied, too too too much. Hell, it even has a cameo from a traffic warden reality TV celebrity of the time! The World Is Not Enough may have been the film's title, but it was more than enough. Way more than enough. You can have too much of a good thing. It was only right that after one more spin of the wheel, Brosnan's Bond, and the over inflated spectacle of this era was put to rest. Bond had started to resemble it's own spoof, namely Casino Royale, the 1967 film. And that was wrong. When Bond came back, in the real, long awaited adaptation of Fleming's Casino Royale it was leaner, meaner and crucially more believable. It was Daniel Craig in black and white, killing a slippery MI6 traitor and thereby gaining his 00. It was simple, and all the more enjoyable for it. When the stunts came - the magnificent Parkour chase - the audience felt they had earned it and they were seeing it more in context with the story. It wasn't just tacked on because that was what was expected.

Ultimately TWINE's opener is a ode to the turn of the century, a triumphant self congratulatory cheer for the Blair generation and its icon; The Dome. Great at the time, but best left in the past, and to our memories. Things can only get better and thankfully, they did.

And the film is still pants.