Director/Writer: Paddy
Considine
Starring: Peter Mullan,
Olivia Colman, Eddie Marsan, Paul Popplewell, Ned Dennehy, Samuel Bottomley,
Sally Carman
Paddy Considine’s “Tyrannosaur”
begins with a scene that disturbed me to the core. I’m sure it wouldn’t have
been as disturbing were I not a dog person, but even a cat person might take
umbrage with it. The fact that this scene is offensive to someone who enjoys
animals doesn’t mean the movie is bad. The impact of this opening is important
to the filmmakers’ purpose.
The film depicts a brute of
a man who exists in an near constant state of rage. What he does to his own dog
at the opening of the movie is a wake up call for him. He loves his dog despite
his brutality against it. Sometimes it takes a relationship that exists on a
simple level to show us our souls. This man of rage begins to try to be
different. The movie has no illusions that such a character change is an easy
or even a permanent thing.
The great Scottish actor
Peter Mullan plays the man. Mullan has been submitting quietly unsettling
performances in films like “Riff-Raff”, “The Claim”, and even “Harry Potter and
the Deathly Hallows, Part 1” for over 20 years, but most Americans wouldn’t
recognize him. This is one of his rare roles that gives him a chance to stretch
into a character that has a full arc. He’s really very good.
He meets a woman in his
attempt to reform. Played by Olivia Colman, she offers him help, which he
rudely rejects at first. The heart inside his cold core won’t allow him to
leave her alone. I love how the Brits don’t feel the need to cast a supermodel
in the lead female role. She has her own demon in the form of an abusive
husband, played by another great British character actor, Eddie Marsan, best known
as Inspector Lestrade from “Sherlock Holmes”.
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