Second sight

Although I can’t generally get too worked up about remakes, just as I can’t get too worked up about most things these days — too old; too tired; too long in what teeth I still have left (four, I think) — I suppose this Brighton Rock does have its work cut out.

Although I can’t generally get too worked up about remakes, just as I can’t get too worked up about most things these days — too old; too tired; too long in what teeth I still have left (four, I think) — I suppose this Brighton Rock does have its work cut out. The director Rowan Joffe, who also wrote it, has said it should not be compared with John Boulting’s 1947 classic film noir adaptation of the Graham Greene novel, starring Richard Attenborough as the unblinkingly sadistic Pinkie, and wishes it to be judged ‘on its own terms’, which is fair enough, but how can you? Once you have seen Boulting’s film, how can you un-see it and erase your memory bank?