Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Sweeny Todd is perhaps the most graphic movie I have been to in years. I did not expect it from Tim Burton who has often done dark and even creepy movies, but morbid? No. This movie is rank of graphic murder, complete with robust arterial spray and cannibalism.
You want to like Sweeny Todd, played by Johnny Depp, from the moment the movie starts. Johnny Depp was one of the boy actors who, then 24, starred in “21 Jump Street” as an upstanding law enforcement officer. It even swings frequently from brooding and Gothic movie to light hearted musical from time to time (and Johnny Depp surprises with a passable singing voice). His character, Benjamin Barker aka Sweeny Todd, has been wrongly accused and punished by a covetous and falsely-pious judge of London. Now, 14 years later after having returned from his wrongful deportation to Australia, he seeks revenge and with the help of budding cannibal Mrs Lovett (played by psycho-vixen Helena Bohem Carter, veteran of movies such as Fight Club and Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix, and the upcoming Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.)
If you have a squeemish stomach you are warned that after he fails to kill the crooked judge, you should close your eyes any time you see Sweeny Todd brandishing his shaving knives in his parlor. Failure to do so will result in your memory being coated with as much gore as Sweeny is when covered in arterial spray from whichever hapless victim wandered in to his lair. And thus begins the conversion of an otherwise tragic victim to a full scale psychopath. Meanwhile, to pay the debts of the meat shop and dispose of the evidence, Mrs Lovett has decided to cook the victims in to her meat pies. Soon she has customers lined up to try her exotic new meat recipes.
Were it not for the graphic nature of the movie I would have happily rated this movie a 5. It not only stretches Depp and Carter beyond the roles that I’ve previously seen them play (because it’s a musical), but the movie has an excellent supporting cast in the persons of Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall (both have played characters in the Harry Potter movies), as well as brief appearances from Anthony Head (played Giles in the Buffer the Vampire Slayer TV series).
Taking in to account the frequent need to avert my eyes and the effect the arterial spray and strong elements of cannibalism within the movie, I have to knock 2 points off it for a round 3. Granted it’s a personal preference scale and might deserve better from a less biased critic, but that’s my opinion and I warn you that seeing this movie may leave you with a strong desire to not consider what goes in to your meat pies, peparoni and sausages.
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