Filth

My Grade:  C+

As the title suggests, Filth is a filthy movie. It’s not as filthy as The Wolf of Wall Street but, then again, no film is... not that I’ve seen anyway. But Filth was adapted from a novel of the same title by Irvine Welsh. You may recognize that name from the brutal but captivating, drug-addled dark comedy Trainspotting. I enjoyed that film and I am a big fan of James McAvoy (X-Men:  First Class, Wanted, and more) who stars in Filth, so I checked it out. Unfortunately, it isn’t as enthralling as Trainspotting, but it features a tour-de-force performance from McAvoy.

McAvoy stars as a highly corrupt cop (no doubt a sociopath) who will stop at nothing to one-up his fellow detectives to beat them out for a promotion. And when I say “stop at nothing,” I really mean it. Nothing is off the table. He dabbles in drugs, prostitutes, extra-marital affairs, pornography, and more to systematically destroy his competition. Unfortunately for him, he has some deep-seated emotional issues and might even hallucinate some things. He’s not ever really sure what’s real and what’s hallucination. The ending, however, delivers a pretty solid (albeit pretty messed up) twist that you probably won’t see coming.

As a film, it’s tough to watch but, as a character study, it’s intriguing and it’s visually quite compelling. The editing and cinematography capture that drug-fueled psychosis that the protagonist is plagued by and almost makes us feel like we are hallucinating with him. They do a good job of trapping you in the filth with the characters. None of the characters are worth empathizing with, though, making it not quite worth the trouble. If it weren’t for James McAvoy and his stunning performance, this would not be a very watchable film.

If you’re a McAvoy fan and you can handle the filth you’ll encounter, then check out this film. But, as a word of advice, maybe turn on the subtitles (like I did) because the strong Scottish accents can make the characters hard to understand.