Well today's movie can best be described as a curio. It's about world matchplay snooker, as
far as I am aware only the second of its kind after the weirdly wonderful
'Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire' This however is a biopic set around
wild boy Alex Higgins and socially inept Steve Davis and reads like a tabletop
Hunt Vs Lauda, but with a completely different set of balls. Inexplicably I had a bit of a thing about snooker during the
time this is set so I kinda relate to it, but just like ‘Rush’, and indeed
every other sports related movie I can think of, the script takes some
liberties with the historical events to adrenaline up what is essentially a
bunch of men nudging balls around a table with little sticks. If you look
behind the rather overblown personalities however it rather effectively shows
the transformation of a slightly seedy niche game into a money spinning
televised ‘sport’.
What really lets this movie down is the Danny Dyersville acting. From Luke
Treadaway’s angst ridden Alex Higgins and Will Merrick’s fright wigging Steve
Davis, the cast stomp around the script like toddlers in Doc Martins. Surely
the BBC and the UK can do better than this for thespy talent? The only person
who comes out of this with any kind of distinction is Kevin Bishop as
svengali/manager Barry Hearn. Overall an experience that slices a yellow rather
than pots a black.
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