A Guarantee of Shite

Trawling through the cinema listings to find screening times for a particular film (REC, if you must know) is always an eye-opening but vaguely dispiriting process. It is amazing the amount of absolute shite you could view if you were so inclined. There are some films you think you could force yourself to see if you really want to, some films you wouldn't touch with a ten foot barge pole even if you were wearing major Personal Protective Equipment. Those films you actively want to see are normally few and far between.

One film on general release that falls into the "barge pole" category is Three and Out. It is not the fact that it has attracted some controversy, and probably is insensitive and crass. Such is the state of my *sense of humour* that I find insensitive and crass a selling point in some cases. It is not that it is a British comedy, and therefore probably desperately trying to be like Four Weddings and A Funeral, even though that film went out of fashion pretty much as soon as it hit the screens. No, the thing that make me sure that I would not watch this film even if you paid me is the star.

Mackenzie Crook.

Crook on a film poster has become a guarantee that the film will be shite. It isn't just Three and Out. Take another Crook vehicle: Sex Lives of the Potato Men. A film that makes you curse the very creators of the motion picture, and makes you crave the halcyon days of radio when - no matter how bad a programme was - you never had to witness the degrading spectacle of Johnny Vegas sweating and wobbling for 90 minutes. Crook also starred in the awful Pirates of the Carribean trilogy - films that defy the banner phrase "popcorn movie" because if you were eating popcorn in any of those movies, you would probably want to choke yourself to death on it before you witnessed another second of Johnny Depp playing Keith Richards very, very badly.

It didn't have to be this way. Let's be honest (and shallow and rude whilst we're at), Mackenzie could never have been James Bond.* Not with his looks. But Crook performed very well in The Office, and could have gone on to become a cult actor with mainstream potential - a Rowan Atkinson with blond hair. Yet, somewhere along the lines, Mackenzie got lost. And is now stuck in that terrible, parallel universe where it is actually a *good* idea for British directors to make comedy films.

Mark my words: Mackenzie Crook in a cast list now means you shouldn't go near that film unless you want a temporary lobotomy.

*And I'm not being too judgmental. After all, with my looks, I couldn't play Bond either. Perhaps a villain. Yeah, that's what I could play. A Bond villain. Probably in a second rate Roger Moore entry. You know, one of those films they phoned in to generate a bit of cash.