A mentally unstable, crooked, alcoholic, drug addict cop stops at nothing to get the promotion he is so passionate about while fighting his inner demons.
I’ll start this way… James McAvoy was not my cup of tea until The Last King of Scotland (2006). By far not! After X-Men: First Class, I started changing my mind. After Filth, I knew I couldn’t have been more wrong. Or, actually, I had been wrong that much once more. With Leonardo DiCaprio after Gangs of New York (2002). But then all of us men were. So, I apologise to both.
James McAvoy in Filth gave the best performance of his life in 2013. And John S. Baird directed the best film of his career, even though Cass (2008) was pretty amazing. Filth will make you laugh and cry, and it will make you laugh and cry again and again until you don’t know how to feel anymore about anyone. Based on the novel by Irvine Welsh, Filth is one of the best Scottish films since Trainspotting (1996), yet another novel by Irvine Welsh. Changing genre every five minutes, Filth is a dramatically funny, surrealistically twisted cinematic journey through the paranoia of a corrupted, deranged, bipolar cop that will drive you bonkers. It’s worth mentioning that Jim Broadbent, in the hallucinatory world, is scarily hilarious.
McAvoy’s psychedelic performance here will prepare you for his cringing performance in Split (2016) and the upcoming Glass (2019). See how it all started…
Fun fact: Trainspotting and Filth potentially coexist in the same universe.
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I couldn’t agree more. A very underatted actor. I think Split was his best and this one a close second.
[…] “Split”, as a standalone, is a brilliant psychological horror/thriller, with James McAvoy doing all the heavy lifting and the extremely talented Anya Taylor-Joy giving him all the support he needs. You feel for him as much as you hate him, depending on the personality that takes over. I have praised him and his talent in a previous review so feel free to see what I thought of him then and what I think of him now: https://kgpfilm.reviews/2018/12/26/filth-2013-comedy-crime-drama/ […]