The Legend of Barney Thomson (Robert Carlyle, 2015)

Robert Carlyle stars in his directorial debut as a hapless and petulant Glasgow barber who inadvertently kills his boss, leading to an increasingly farcical downward spiral as he tries to cover up the crime, with Ray Winstone's snarling copper on his tail.
The brief here is clearly Irvine Welshesque black comedy, not a million miles removed from Trainspotting, with characters in a fag-end existence dragged humiliatingly through the drains through their own device, but the brushstrokes are even broader in a rather forced attempt to squeeze out gallows humour from the protagonist's plight at every turn. And while Carlyle, Winstone and Emma Thompson as Carlyle's monstrous mother, really chewing up the scenery. are all their usual good value for money, the descent into Grand Guignol is ham-fisted and unnecessary. If Carlyle continues in this genre, perhaps next time he'll be better served by adapting a story actually by Welsh, rather than a cruder imitation like this one.

4/10