buggers with style plunkett and macclean

#Buggers with style plunkett and macclean movie

The script is fast-moving and peppered with modern-day colloquialisms Merchant Ivory, this is not. The music shifts between swooping glorious choirs and thumping bass-laden techno, which doesn't jarr as you think it should do in a historical film. Alan Cummings gets all the best threads, and the best lines as Lord Rochester, sporting a very non-18th century eyebrow piercing. Big, colourful, historically innacurate beautiful togs. He falls in love with Lady Rebecca (Liv Tyler), (who to be frank is the only weak part of the whole shebang) and wants to impress her. Plunkett is a hard nut, but MaCleane is far too polite for that, and thus becomes 'the gentleman highwayman'. This is the story of downtrodden highwayman Plunkett (Robert Carlisle) and Gentleman-fallen-on-hard-times Captain Macleane (Jonny Lee Miller), and how they get together and rob the aristo pigs. and accompanied by a delightful techno soundtrack to boot. 8/10Īh, how refreshing to see a vision of 18th century England complete with mud, the pox and gibbets.

#Buggers with style plunkett and macclean movie

In total, the movie works very well, a nice balance between story and special effects, action and comedy. Both the character and the acting are stellar and among the best in the movie. In addition to these interesting characters Cumming play the best of them all, Lord Rochester. The scene with the ball is very good, especially the (anachronistic) use of the music. And then there is the relationship between Macleane and Rebecca Gibson. Carlyle and Miller form a good team, with a lot of friction and friendship. Comments: A good action flavoured by comedy and adventure. And a Mr Chance (Stott) is out to catch them, and his methods are not very nice. But Macleane falls in love with the niece/daughter (?) of their first victim, lady Rebecca Gibson (Tyler). Macleane is to pose as a gentleman and find out who is worth robbing, and then simply they rob him (and rob them in style). The ruby is their key to freedom, and once they're free, they form a partnership in robbery. Unfortunately they are caught as grave robbers and sent to jail, but not until Plunkett has swallowed the ruby. Plunkett and Macleane then meet at the cemetery when both try to get hold of the ruby. Plunkett's partner get shot (and killed) but not until after he has swallowed a great ruby. But don't expect constant action: there's a flow of (fairly) civilised conversation in-between all the highway drama.** HERE BE SPOILERS ** Recap: Macleane (Miller) witnesses a robbery by Plunkett (Carlyle) that goes wrong.

Boisterous, deafening and gruesome, it all bodes well for the next 90 minutes. The impressive first 10 minutes (Plunkett meets Macleane) grab your attention like a musket in the face, involving a runaway stagecoach, the disembowelling of a corpse and a good Olde Englande shoote oute.

But cotton on to the fact that Plunkett&Macleane has one foot in the 18th century and the other planted firmly in the late 1990s, and you can just sit back, enjoy and stop worrying about anachronisms. 'Did they mean to do that?' you'll wonder, when you notice the Phil and Grant Mitchell-style cockney fops, pierced eyebrows, and techno thumps at the grand ball. It has all the ingredients of a classic costume romp (massive wigs, pistols at dawn, heaving bosoms a-plenty), but Scott gives it a deliberate contemporary slant. When a director with a background in music videos and commercials helms a period flick, he's bound to end up with something distinctive - and Jake Scott's first feature succeeds simply because it never takes itself too seriously.