Bill Forsyth, having built up expectations with Gregory's Girl and Local Hero, was hereupon charged with "slightness." Why? A character who gets dumped by his girlfriend at middle age, seizes upon the opportunity to take stock of his life, finds it to be without serious purpose, and begins to cast about for some such, is surely a candidate for, if not Everyman, at least Many-a-man, and seems a substantial subject for a work of fiction. To put it like that, of course, makes the work sound heavy in ways it certainly isn't. That the character in question should be a Glasgow deejay called "Dickie" Bird; that the source of his sense of unworth should be a morning radio program titled The Early Worm Show with its twittering ads for Thrifty Pops, Minty Chews, and the like; that his notion of something worthwhile should be a "documentary" with the working title of Bird's-Eye View; that the issue which presents itself for such should be a commercial war between the Mr. Bunny and Mr. McCool ice-cream vendors -- all this is a virtual definition of burlesque, and is a fair sample of the Forsyth sense of humor. The main problem with the movie, if any worth mentioning, is not that it is not serious enough, but that it is not funny enough. And yet what makes this, finally, not worth mentioning is that wherever the funniness runs thin, the underlying seriousness preserves a firm footing. With Bill Paterson. (1984) — Duncan Shepherd
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