Cinema
Rob Roy
('15', selected cinemas)
A ravishing body
Mark Steyn
We should treasure Hugh Grant, cute Cabbage Patch hairdo and all. As far as major motion Rictures are concerned, he is the sole likeable Englishman, the only pos- itive role model for the English community — a pre-trial OJ or a post-knighthood Ian McKellen. All the others can look forward to is the latter-day equivalents of the shif'less coon stereotypes: they can be thin- lipped, sneering duplicitous bastards or emotionally repressed sexual incompe- tents, but never the romantic lead unless, like Daniel Day-Lewis, they go around pretending to be Irish. I'm not generally in favour of affirmative action programmes, but, on the evidence of Rob Roy, the English could certainly use one.
On the one hand, we have rugged, raw Liam Neeson, dwelling in the highlands in an environmentally-sound house roofed with sods of earth, singing gaily at the daily ceilidh round the old camp fire. On the other hand, we have the villains — shifty anglophiles gathered round the old camp English aristocrat, who pouts and flounces and bitches and queens the day away. This is Archie Cunningham, an arch, cunning ham played by Tim Roth. A riot of velvet, of pinks and turquoises, Roth minces about sucking the colour out of everything else, leaving the rest of the picture a muddy beige.
John Hurt, as the Marquess of Mon- trose, and Brian Cox, as his Grace's fac- tor, mooch sullenly in the background, like guys who signed on for Merchant- Ivory only to find they're playing straight men to Danny la Rue. 'Great men draw rumours,' observes Hurt, 'as white draws flies' — or as great actors draw short straws.
This is Michael Caton-Jones' dilemma, too. He can't quite decide whether he's making an upscale period piece or a mainstream adventure romp, and so he falls between the two camps. It's left to the effete Englishman to sit around filling in the background detail with obscure allusions to the pretender across the water who'd usurp what's rightfully theirs — presumably a reference to Jessica Lange, who's taken the role of Mrs Rob Roy. Gamely, Miss Lange has tossed her vowel sounds into the alphabet soup and plucked them out at random in a spirited impression of a Scots accent: 'Wull ye feend ay shup tae cumfairt ye?' she play- fully asks Rob. This means: Will you find a sheep to comfort you?' From across the glen there comes a faint '13aaa'. Or as Jessica would say, `Beeee'.
Even more bravely, Miss Lange appears all pasty-faced, having allowed Tim Roth to run away with the make-up budget. Despite this, the fop ravishes her, and a local serving wench. Trampled by the rapes of Roth, Liam Neeson is finally goaded into action.
By now, the greatest puzzle in the pic- ture is why it's called Rob Roy. I'd always assumed this was his name, like Joe-Bob or Cindy-Lou. But most of his pals call him Robert, while Brian Cox refers to him as 'the McGregor'. Scottish titles are often something of a mystery: one thinks of the MacNab of MacNab, the Younger of MacNab, the Chicken of McNugget. But, as the plot stalls, all that's left is idle speculation: why Roy?
Neeson is, in some ways, a passive, internalised actor — whether in Husbands and Wives or Schindlers List — and he gives the impression here that he can't be bothered to get up and go swashbuckling, that he'd rather sit around watching the grass grow on his roof. Every once in a while, he rouses himself: the camera swoops over the Kyle of Lochalgh, or pos- sibly the Kyle o' Minogue, and Neeson comes bounding past the lochs, his manly locks bouncing like a Harmony Hairspray commercial. He's wearing new Swash 'n' Go But he never does.
Caton-Jones' flimsy tale is essentially a negative equity repossession drama. Rob mortgages his home to the Marquess for a loan of a thousand pounds — or, rather, a loon of a thousand poonds — but the fop decides to rob Roy to pay his tailor and swipes the money. The Marquess retali- ates by burning the peat of Rob's house. As it's a one-storey house, this is bad news for Rob. As it's a one-story plot, it's also bad news for us.
`There's nowt so queer as soldiers. ..'
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