Rating of
3/4
Cillian Murphy is a Chameleon
Franz Patrick - wrote on 10/11/08
Cillian Murphy is a chameleon. Instead of playing a man on the run from zombies (”28 Days Later”), a psychiatrist who wants to drive Gotham City into madness (”Batman Begins, “The Dark Knight”), an assassin who terrorizes Rachel McAdams (”Red Eye”), and one of the chosen few whose goal is to ignite the sun (”Sunshine”), this time around he plays a sympathetic transvestite whose mission is to find his mother in London. Even though the approach of the film is slanted toward the comedic side, there’s a certain sadness and tragedy that lingers throughout the picture. The only main flaw that I could point out is the middle portion is a bit saggy. The little adventures that Murphy’s character (Patrick “Kitten” Braden) went through are interesting but some of them didn’t add up to anything in the end (Maybe that’s the point regarding how life really is sometimes?). The film regains its focus when the idea of family is again introduced during the last thirty minutes. It’s heartbreaking, touching and hopeful at the same time. I also liked the fact that we got to know the friends of Braden. Even though Braden travels to all these places, the audiences get this feeling that his friends have always got his back. Overall, this is a solid film that could’ve been extremely sentimental and cliched but ultimately did not because the writing is smart and the direction is focused.
