When he was promoting the launch of Burke and Hare in the UK, Simon Pegg said he’d read the script before director John Landis came aboard and he jumped at the chance to play William Burke when Landis offered him the role as they had a convivial dinner and watched Terminator Salvation in Los Angeles.
It’s easy to see why Pegg was keen to work with the legendary director of The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London, Trading Places, Three Amigos! and Coming to America.
But where oh where are the comic set pieces, jokes and witty lines in the script by Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft, who wrote both St. Trinian’s capers?
Hard to find. Pegg is a naturally funny man as well as an accomplished script writer (he co-wrote Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Run, Fatboy, Run and, less memorably, Paul) but even he can’t manufacture humour out of a funereal plot. Same goes for his talented fellow performers in Andy Serkis, Tom Wilkinson, Isla Fisher, Tim Curry and Jessica Hynes.
The movie was released in the UK in October 2010 and didn’t do well although Landis claims it made money. It was Landis’ first feature directing gig since 1998’s Susan’s Plan, which went straight to DVD in the US; he’s worked in TV, documentaries and commercials in recent years.
Produced by the once-venerable Ealing Studios, the film is based on the true story of two serial killers in early 19th Century Edinburgh, Brendan "Dynes" Burke and William Hare, who sold their victims’ bodies to anatomy lecturer Dr. Robert Knox.
Landis tries to portray these scoundrels as both likable and sympathetic, a near impossible task for Pegg and Serkis, who plays Hare. The Irish con-men start out robbing graves then decide to expedite the process of providing corpses to Dr Knox (Wilkinson) after his rival Dr. Monro (Curry) secures the contract to all the city’s stiffs.
They manage to botch their first attempts before becoming more skilled as executioners. In this enterprise they are egged on by Hare’s boozy wife, the ironically named Lucky (Hynes).
A weak sub-plot follows Burke’s efforts to woo Ginny Hawkins (Fisher, with wobbly accent), a former prostitute who fancies herself as an actress and wants him to finance her all-female production of Macbeth. It is amusing to see Pegg’s pained expression as Ginny finds innumerable excuses to keep him at bay.
Ronnie Corbett provides a spot of comic relief as the wee Captain McLintoch, the pompous, blustering head of the city’s militia, a bunch of incompetents. But for the most part the plot relies on slapstick and hoary old devices such as a chamber pot being emptied, a soldier fainting at the sight of blood or falling into a grave, and a runaway corpse-in-a-barrel.
Still, with all that mugging, posturing and shouting, most of the performances would be more at home in a Bournemouth summer pantomime. Cameos from Stephen Merchant, Christopher Lee, Jenny Agutter and director Michael Winner are brief and of little value.
Anyone who’s interested in the real Burke and Hare saga might like to seek out Robert Wise’s 1945 horror classic The Body Snatcher, which starred Boris Karloff and Béla Lugosi.
