The
lowdown: 'My Kingdom' is essentially a modern version
of William Shakespeare's 'King Lear', but transposed
to contemporary Liverpool
and the downfall of a local family that heads an organised crime empire.
Richard Harris
is the ageing patriarch,
Sandeman, in his last film role. Sandeman and his wife, Mandy (Lynn Redgrave),
are going
home after an evening out
when they are robbed and Mandy is shot dead. A grieving Sandeman calls
a meeting of
his most loyal allies, including
his three daughters and the brutak Sikh hitman named Jug (Jimi Mistry).
Sandeman
announces that he is retiring
from the crime racket and will hand control of his empire to his three
daughters. Kath
runs a brothel and Tracy
owns a local football team, while Emma Catherwood plays Jo (the film's
equivalent of King
Lear's Cordelia) as a former
drug addict who has no desire to be part of the "family business".
Sandeman disowns Jo after
the two have an argument about her inheritance, and the other two daughters
are set to
inherit his empire. Meanwhile,
Jug and Sandeman's son-in-law, Dean (Paul McGann) are asked to track down
the
men responsible for Mandy's
death. The Sikh quickly starts torturing and killing people in very nasty
ways, including
poking out somebody's eyes
and leaving them on railway tracks with a train approaching. Kath and Jo
(or Regan and
Goneril for Shakespeare
purists) are both ambitious and greedy, and Sandeman soon finds himself
targeted for death.
Like King Lear in the original
play he becomes an outcast wandering the cold streets of Liverpool, accompanied
only
by his young grandson rather
than Lear's fool. When the boy is killed by the people who are trying to
kill Sandeman,
he turns to Jo for help
and forgiveness. But further tragedy is set to strike Liverpool's leading
crime family...
The
verdict: 'My Kingdom' is an ambitious film, and one of
many that have attempted to transer Shakespeare plays
to a modern setting. It
does not entirely succeed, and the plot becomes very convoluted at times,
so it is very useful
for the viewer to be familiar
with the original story. Richard Harris is the star of this film, which
is worth watching for his
performance alone. The supporting
cast are also generally very good, although McGann has relatively few scenes.
But
this film is not for the
faint-hearted, as some of the torture scenes are very graphic and confronting.
Nevertheless, fans
of 'King Lear' will enjoy
seeing a modern treatment of one of Shakespeare's most famous plays. And
how can you not
like a film that features
characters with names like Mutt, Jeff, Skunk Animal and Mineral (presumably
the scenes with
Vegetable were cut).
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