Absolute stinker. Avoid.

I saw Mark Kermode's review last week, and although he only had a couple of minutes to cover it, he made London Road sound like an interesting and genuinely different approach to portraying a particularly grim chapter in British criminal history. I don't know what film he saw, because I was forced to sit through a charmless and cringe worthy 90 minutes, that felt more like 180 before the credits rolled.

As a quick summary; the actual story of the Ipswich Ripper provides a mere background to the film. It's actually about the residents of the titular London Road, who we see clumsily shuffle along a tedious story arch from suspicious neighbours to street party hosting bessie mates. Even the weather improves on the street by the end. Put bluntly, it's just not very interesting, and falls apart for the following reasons:

- None of the 'songs' are memorable, which is a death-knell for any piece of work that calls itself a musical, or has aspirations to ape some of that genre's characteristics. In fact, there are no real songs in the entire piece, just people lilting their voices when speaking otherwise prosaic, uninteresting dialogue. That means no rhyming structure, no catchy choruses, no clever wordplay. Just tedious repetition of a few phrases at a time, 'complimented' by some supporting drivel. It's painful, and could just have easily been made up improv on the spot as written down and composed.

- Due to the insistence on moving the plot along in the aforementioned musical structure, none of the characters are allowed any proper development, as they are all essentially talking heads spouting the same lines. Much of the time, different characters share dialogue, robbing them even of that basic individuality. What we are left with is a series of empty, lifeless character tropes; the middle-aged overweight bloke, the nosy mother, the snappy newscaster, a few suburb dwelling couples, the uncouth bachelor, etc. All are nameless (until some are revealed at the very end) and as such are impossible to identify with and/or care about.

- Special note for Tom Hardy fans: He's in it for no more than 10 minutes, in an utterly forgettable cameo as a shifty cab driver. Save yourself a trip and watch a clip of it on YouTube in a year's time. Then never watch it again.

- Perhaps most importantly, the backdrop story is about five real women who were brutally killed not ten years ago (read here for more, if you like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wright_(serial_killer)). Call me delicate, but the overall chirpy tone and awkward humour sat uncomfortably with me. Coupled with the poor excuses for 'songs' it just feels in poor taste and ill-conceived from the off.

The result is a film which manages to be both distasteful and boring at the same time, which in of itself is something of an impressive feat. It was a neat idea, with dreadful execution. It might have made an amusing 15 minute skit, but as a 90 min feature it's a car crash. Kermode has been huffing too many fumes from all that goop he puts into maintaining that ever receding quiff of his. Give it a wide berth.