Filth (2013)

Irvine Welsh rocked your world with Trainspotting, and Danny Boyle nailed it back then. It was unlike anything you'd ever seen in your entire life. This will mess your head up and that's great. It's just that you have seen stuff like this before, and that's just a little disappointing.

The film takes place in Scotland, focusing on the Scottish police force and one particular officer Bruce Robertson. An aspiring officer hoping to get promoted and you've read the blurb so I'll just get on with it.

To start, it's very funny. It's got Irvine Welsh's sense of humour all over it. It's offencive to everyone. It involves homophobia, drinking, drugs, sex, masturbation and pretty much anything you can think of that can be deemed offencive this film has and makes it funny. Yet, in the midst of all this, there's this deeply psychological (and extremely worrying) sub-story that keeps reoccurring throughout. This I was not expecting. It's very dark and emotional. The visual are terrifying, and the denouement is particularly touching and haunting, as well as being weird as hell and surreal-ly strange.

There are a few plot points that at first can seem a little unneeded, but later make sense thinking about it. However, even after rethinking it, they still seem a little unnecessary. One thing I can say however, is that it is never boring, as the story does move at a great pace, and is always, at the very least, quite interesting.

The acting is incredible. James McAvoy is brilliant, his portrayal of this emotionally and psychologically disturbed man is spot on, as well as humorous at times. Jamie Bell is great, acting as a building block for McAvoy's powerful performance, however in doing so does get pushed to the background quite easily, and doesn't make much impact on the film or story as a whole. Jim Broadbent however is perfect as McAvoy's subconscious doctor, and portrays what could very well be, the living embodiment of everything Irvine Welsh has ever written. From start to finish, in this role, totally mental. This is a perfect addition to the film.

Final Grade: B It's a wild ride, with some unexpected moments. However it's not entirely original, with much of it being seen before. However with the new comedy twists and that dark sense of humour so often found in Welsh's novels, being perfectly replicated on the big screen. It's definitely one for Trainspotting fans, just don't be expecting quite as much from this one.

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Fmovies: We have had a few fairly unremarkable adaptations of Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh's books, supporting the notion that with the one exception of Danny Boyle's phenomenal 'Trainspotting', his material remains pretty much impossible to put on the screen. Indeed, 'Trainspotting' itself was not a direct adaption as such, but rather an extrapolation of bits and pieces of it to make a cohesive narrative. In the Welsh lore, 'Filth' is put up there as one of the most difficult, and so it is with great surprise that Jon Baird's take on the book is not only a good piece of work, but also perhaps one of the most accomplished films of 2013!

Our protagonist, as is so often the case with Welsh, is not a person we would choose to meet. Detective Sargent Bruce Robertson is mean-spirited, racist, sexist, aggressive, vindictive, with a psychiatric disorder and a bitter past that won't let him rest, which he seems most happy to appease with a regular cocktail of drink, cocaine and sexual debauchery behind his colleagues' and family's back. Manipulative and out for himself, Bruce has a plan to appear to be solving the case of a murdered local resident, whilst playing all his colleagues off one another with a view to clearing an easy path for his own promotion to Chief Detective.

There are plenty of treats strewn through 'Filth', little cameos, smart, snappy dialogue, great jokes and wonderful performances from the likes of the ever versatile Jim Broadbent and Eddie Marsan. A subtle, schizophrenic soundtrack underscores so well the dark, cesspit nature of the journey the character is on, it raises the question, again, as to whether Clint Mansell will ever do wrong? The whole thing is shot with a seemingly intentional recklessness; an abandonment of sharp editing and an embrace of a sloppy, rough-around-the edges, almost unfocused approach make a film that feels as disgusting as the vomit spewing from character's mouths, both figuratively and, at times, literally!

The star here, however, is James MacEvoy. There has been much said about his performance being an Oscar courting one; whilst there is no guarantee of that, I am confident in saying this is a career-best from him, and this cannot be overstated. Welsh has said he thinks MacEvoy is "better than De Niro in Taxi Driver", and whilst I do not know if I agree with that, we can certainly understand the comparison. MacEvoy is not a man one might immediately cast in this role, and so it makes it all the more impressive when we watch a performance that simultaneously keeps us at a distance and pulls us close; the actor manages to be completely vile, and yet convince us with an equal conviction that he is a man with a buried and forgotten heart that used to pump warmth; I have not seen this level of complexity so well delivered since Peter Mullan in 'Tyrannosaur'. Scabrous, nasty, cold and angry, yet obviously vulnerable and lost, this is a perfectly balanced, well-rounded performance, and MacEvoy is perhaps most impressive when he is being everything at once! In one such scene, he says, "I used to be good at this job," which could well sum up Robertson's rather sad arc. Whatever your final take on him, we get a complete human being, and not one we ever feel the desire to condemn, despite all his awfulness.

In the face of common opinion that it simply wouldn't work, and after years of development, 'Filth' turns out to be a near masterpiece, whose recognition as such is

I had such high hopes for this movie after seeing some of the most intriguing trailers I've ever seen. I was not disappointed what so ever.

I liked this title so much I would actually fit it into my top 10 of all time.

Without spoiling much for anyone, it really is filth. The movie definitely earns its 18 rating because at times, it is quite literally hardcore pornography.

Bruce is one of the most complex characters I've ever seen in a movie. It took a while to decipher exactly what was going wrong with him, but it because clear by the end.

I want to make it clear to people going into this movie what they should expect. Expect a lot of violence, a lot of swearing, pornography & masturbation, depression and mental illness. It's a movie for those who don't get offended very easily.

In summary, this movie will make you laugh, it'll make you cringe & it'll make you happy. The overall feeling at the end though, is that you're watching a man lose his mind, & you see his depression take over his body in many different ways.

I'm giving it 10/10 because I thought everything about it was so perfectly done. It achieved exactly what it set out to do, it achieved utter filth.

Filth fmovies. If you are a friend of funny, thrilling and bizarre movies, you're gonna love this one! First of all, this movie manages to surprise you again and again till the end. It switches between funny, dramatic and thrilling elements. James McAvoy gives an amazing performance (by far the best I've seen from him) as the funny, manipulative, sick, drug-addicted, broken, Cop and manages to portrait every aspect of the character. Another piece of awesome acting is delivered by Jim Broadbent who plays his psychologist. The dialogues between him and James McAvoy are just amazing! The rest of the cast is also decent and the characters are all very special in a refreshing way. The only bad thing i can mention about this movie is, that it has some (but small) longueurs. I can recommend it to everyone who likes movies of this kind and has no problem with movies containing a lot of sex, drugs and f*cked up moments :)

Probably my favourite film of 2013 so far. Gripping all the way through, with all the aspects you need from a feature length film. Yes, it has the obvious overtone of 'filth', but it's not at all in its nature... it's humorous and very touching at times. I think the casting is brilliant and I have a new found respect for James McAvoy, who in previous films I have found to be almost nondescript. He shines here, brighter than most Oscar winning performers I've seen. Ray Donovan's Eddie Marson is also fantastic in his role, so well cast - he's funny and warm in such a subtle way. This is not one of those situations when someone can rightly say 'the book is better' - I think the job has been done so well of adapting it into film format that the book is not better at all, just a different experience. It is honestly a film I want to see again. I think an instant classic, not filthy at all, but pure class.

Remember when Ewan McGregor played in a little movie called Trainspotting? The film was made after a book by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh and it was an intense and often funny window into the complete wasting of human life due to heroin. It made McGregor famous.

Now, James McAvoy has no need to be made famous, he already is, and he showed he is a great actor in several movies; he is on a roll. But in this film, also made from an Irvine Welsh book, he really outdid himself, playing a deranged police inspector torn apart by addiction, grief and madness.

The film itself is difficult to explain and, perhaps, it would be more clear to me if I would have read the book first. Some of the characters I have no idea who they were and why he was interacting with them in the first place. Also the ending is pretty much the antithesis of the one in Trainspotting. Here, there is no hope.

The direction was good, I guess, as well as the general production values. A bunch of known, but usually secondary actors fill the cast, with often interesting results, but let's face it, the film is mostly a one man show and McAvoy was up for the job. I just wish the story would have been less confusing.

Conclusion: it would be a shame not to watch this film, even if you end up not liking it for some reason. You need to be familiar with Scottish accents or use a subtitle to get what people are saying. Other than that, great work, James!