I've just got in from watching The Ferryman and felt I had to vent my frustration. This film had the potential to be excellent, I think, but it's badly let down by quite a few key points. Based on the mythic character of the Ferryman from Greek legend, who's only task was to carry people across from the land of the living to the land of the dead (was it the river Styx?), the premise was that someone who had 'died', and so was bound to 'cross over', had found a way to cheat death and stay on this side of 'the river'. He hadn't, in essence, paid the ferryman. So far so good, and a great set-up for a film - the character was essentially on the run from death and had been for hundreds (or was it thousands?) of years. He could've made a killing on property, either way. Anyway, the plot device to drive this story, though, was a dagger that allowed the bearer to 'switch' bodies, and thus stay one step ahead of the punting ghoul with the invoice of the title. This dagger had NO connection whatsoever, as far as I could see, to the Greek myth. Fair enough if you're expecting the audience to buy into one 'fantastical' concept, but TWO,totally unrelated ones? Is there a dagger that transfers souls in Greek mythology? I don't know of one... I'm prepared to be corrected though. And don't get me started on where that coin came from, either. Or the kid... That's not even my main gripe though. Here's where I think the film really let itself down: as the characters stab each other with the knife, and so transfer the evil soul from body to body (Wes Craven's Shocker?), some of these incidents occur off camera. Brilliant idea. So you don't really know which character is the baddie, right? Wrong. But it's still a brilliantly tense situation where the audience is thinking 'is she just cracking under the strain of seeing someone get stabbed/being trapped on a boat in the fog/not knowing what's going on?' or is she in fact the evil entity, right? WRONG again. The baddie is flagged up every single time cos there's a ruddy great tattoo that appears on their back when they're possessed. Nice one, Mr Director. Why not just put them in a Hi-Vis vest with a rotating bow-tie? Apart from this, the acting from the high-maintenance blonde is titanically bad, as is the work from the Maori chap who's as wooden as the decking. The Ferryman himself gets about 5 minutes screen time, and seeing as how he's quite a terrifying looking chap, that's a Darth Maul-esqe waste. The direction in general is not dynamic enough, and some scenes linger a couple of painful seconds too long.. reminding me of the classically bad soap opera, Sunset Beach... but the music, and the performance of the bolshie Cock-er-ney captain were quite enjoyable. All in all, if you're after body-swapping horror, go for Denzel Washington in Fallen. That's got better music, too... Ti-i-i-ime, is on my siiide, yes it is....
Review of The Ferryman
