Film Review: SHALLOW GRAVE (1994)

Director: Danny Boyle
Running time: 92 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): 18

UK release date: 6th January 1995

Watched on Sky+ Saturday 8th January 2011.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

This is the first feature film directed by Danny Boyle and I have seen it a few times now. I find it funny that when an artist becomes famous, people always look back at their early work, as if looking for the beginnings of that spark of genius. Me, well I just enjoy a well made film with some good performances and a decent plot. But more about my thoughts later, here’s a brief summary first (summary haters please hide in the attic and guard the cash).

Three young flatmates, Juliet Miller, a doctor, David Stephens, an accountant and Alex Law, a journalist, have a spare room and are looking for a new tenant. Having interviewed, and callously rejected, several applicants they finally settle on Hugo, a writer. He moves in and locks his door and that’s that last the trio see of him… alive that is. After a couple of days they break into his room to find him lying dead on his bed. Searching the room, Alex comes across a suitcase stuffed full of cash. After much debate it is decided to keep the cash and dispose of the body. At this point I’ll have to stop or I will give too much away, but needless to say, things don’t go exactly to plan.

Unfortunately this film was made in the nineties and the three main characters personify everything I hated about that era. They are greedy, arrogant and just about the most loathsome trio I would wish to meet. However, the story that’s played out on the screen is pretty good, so I stuck with it. Great performances all round, particularly from Christopher Eccleston who is brilliant as David, Ewan McGregor is particularly lithesome as Alex and Kerry Fox put in a good effort as Juliet.

As we’ve come to expect from Danny Boyle, this is a very well made film with great attention to detail. The star performance for me came from Christopher Eccleston; he gave us the full range of emotions here which made him stand out. If the three main characters weren’t quite so loathsome then maybe I would have given a higher score, but it’s definitely worth watching nonetheless… Recommended.

My score: 7.4/10

LINKS:
IMDb Page: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0111149/
Trailer: http://uk.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK/video/screenplay/vi1328349977/