Blackbird: Grinning in the Dread of Naught
On Michael Flatley's bonkers, inexplicable 007 cosplay fiasco
I have seen Michael Flatley's film opus Blackbird. And it's glorious. It soars like a pigeon into a jet engine. Half way through it had me wishing Covid had closed cinemas for good. It's an incredible, excruciating vanity project. Glorious stuff.
It must be stated firmly up front: Flatley's acting skills are as limited as a Tory Donor's PPE company. He possesses all the screen presence of a screen. He tries to brood manfully, but instead resembles a drunk struggling with the printed map at a bus stop.
The plot involves a MacGuffin that could either save or doom humanity in the right / wrong hands. The exposition in this scene is so dense, passing black holes get sucked into it.
Retired secret super agent Flatley has to get involved as "No one can do what he does". What that might be is never actually stated or shown. Unless it's wearing a hat. Flatley's character wears a lot of hats.
In one amazing scene, Flatley strides down a corridor, takes off one hat, hands it to a lackey, who immediately proffers another hat, which the retired agent then dons. There's a lot of hat acting in the movie. Flatley has invented 'Hacting'. Joyful.
Eric Roberts' villain is trying to sell the MacGuffin to a secret cabal of supervillains. Eric Roberts had 18 credits in 2018 (when Blackbird was filmed) so he's hardly Daniel Day-Lewis when it comes to carefully selecting his roles.
Eric Roberts' performance is...relaxed. He looks like he's reading his lines off a cue card for the first time. He isn't phoning it in, more that he's had his assistant text them a few bullet points.
But this film isn't about Eric Roberts. This is a movie filmed in glorious FlatleyVision. You simply have to salute an ego that watched Daniel Craig in Casino Royale and thought, 'yeah I could easily do that. But probably a bit better'
Flatley flaunts a white dinner jacket, thinking he's a cross between Connery and Bogart. Aiming for a look that blends louche and sophisticated, he ends up resembling a handsy uncle at an ill-lit wedding.
The thin plot soon descends like an anvil down a lift shaft. And it matters not at all. The dialogue assaults the ears, the logic assaults the brain, and the pace accelerates to glacial.
Flatley insists on innumerable, lingering close ups of his own face, as if he's Rudolph Valentino. And to be polite...he's, um, not. He has the face of a rich 60 year old. Which isn't a problem in itself. Until...
The hotel's sexy jazz singer strips off in front of Flatley, in his suite. It has all the sexual tension of a tax return. Because she's in her mid 20s and he's very much a 60 year old man. He turns her down. Thank Christ.
There's a John Le Carry on Spying joke to be made somewhere, but definitely not here
And throughout, the pacing is baffling. Is this an action film? If so, the action has been replaced with self regard. For a director skilled in the art of dance, the movie has all the rhythm of a box of spanners dropped down a metal staircase.
I won't ruin the ending because Flatley has done it for us. It takes excitement, narrative and logic into a back alley, and gives it a good kicking. And those feet delivering the shoeing sure are moving quickly.