Burke & Hare

Review by Anthony Morris

When you're thinking up material for a lightweight black comedy, the exploits of Burke & Hare – 19th century graverobbers who branched out into outright murder to meed the growing demand for fresh corpses from Edinburgh’s medical schools – might not leap to mind.

Of course, anything can be turned into comedy in skilled (or extremely clumsy) hands.

Unfortunately, here, director John Landis turns out to be merely competent and the film itself not much better.

Simon Pegg proves once again that the number one rule of movie-going is "don't go see anything starring Simon Pegg if he didn't actually write it" as Burke, while Andy Serkis as Hare fares slightly better.

This is mostly because while Burke spends most of the movie moping after somewhat crap actress Ginny (Isla Fisher), Hare gets to get it on with his drunk wife Lucky (Jessica Hynes – yes, it's the Spaced reunion you've been waiting for… only not).

Most of their corpse-snatching schemes are played for laughs even once they shade into murder, while the rival doctors (Tim Curry and Tom Wilkinson) do a decent job of sneering contempt.

But they can't make up for a script that's all over the place and direction that never manages to figure out what tone to take with it.

Despite the big name cast (Bill Bailey turns up as a hangman), there aren't even enough good scenes to make this worth checking out, let alone the entire film.

Unless you're a massive fan of corpse dissection, steer clear of Burk & Hare.

2 out of 5

Burke & Hare
Australian release: 12th May, 2011
Official Site: Burke & Hare
Cast: Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Isla Fisher, Tom Wilkinson
Director: John Landis