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Divorcing Jack is the latest addition to a growing list of Tarentinoesque
mixed-genre movies such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Grosse
Point Blank. Unlike its predecessors, however, Divorcing Jack is neither new
nor clever and does nothing to develop the field. A generic roller-coaster,
David Caffrey's directorial debut (from Colin Bateman's novel) veers wildly
between romance, action, murder-mystery, black comedy, thriller, buddy film,
and farce.
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David Thewlis (Naked, The Island of Dr Moreau) plays Dan Starkey, a cynical
Belfast columnist. The victim of his drunken womanising compulsions, Starkey
returns to his love nest to discover his most recent conquest herself a
victim of unknown assassins. On her deathbed, she whispers the Rosebudian
"Divorce Jack", which apparently contains the clue to finding her killer.
True to his journalist form, and on the run from the police, Starkey embarks
on a tumultuous truth-seeking mission as the Hitchcock-styled wrongly
accused, only to uncover blackmail and deception at the highest level.
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Like a lot of the one-liners that fell flat, the use of gratuitous Western
film motifs such as American country music and the saloon décor of "Cow" Pat
Kerrigan's (Jason Isaacs) house highlights Divorcing Jack's use of ambiguous
humour at the expense of cohesion. Borrowed elements from Lock, Stock and
Two Smoking Barrels' sickening party scene and Trainspotting's subjective
toilet scene (in that order) only serve to highlight Divorcing Jack's lack
of originality and failure even in imitation.
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The weaknesses in the comedy department expose a serious lack of character
motivation and plot plausibility, like why Lee Cooper, the nun-a-gram played
by Rachel Griffiths, would feel compelled to take a strange, bleeding
accused murderer home to care for (not to mention do his washing).
Disappointingly, although Griffiths receives equal billing to Thewlis on the
tail of her Academy Award nomination for Hilary and Jackie, her character is
on screen for barely twenty minutes -- hardly long enough to justify her
prominent promotion.
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Set in a newly independent Northern Ireland, immediately before its first
election, Divorcing Jack comments on contemporary political issues (from a
near future standpoint) within a comedy framework. Granted that nothing is
sacred when it comes to humour, Starkey's self-indulgent philosophising on
the value of human life and utilitarianism beg to question whether comedy is
yet a flavour we can add to the Irish political scene. Interestingly,
similarities may be found between the Irish Prime Ministerial candidate,
Michael Blinn (Robert Lindsey), and England's Tony Blair, both in name and
appearance, as well as in their political campaigns: Blinn's "New Alliance"
and Blair's "New Way" both rely on public relations to link their utopian
balance of right- and left-wing politics. Filmed before the 1998 Good Friday
peace talks, this could be seen as a strategy by Divorcing Jack to
neutralise its political component by appealing to both unionists and
republicans alike.
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Ultimately, Divorcing Jack tries to do too much, becoming more of a Naked
Gun film, in terms of seen-it-all-beforedness, than anything like Pulp
Fiction in terms of shocking originality. In one of Starkey's monologues, he
says optimistically that things are "better than the other shite" ...
Divorcing Jack, unfortunately, is not.
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Details
Divorcing Jack, by New Vision, 1998.
Director: David Caffrey.
Screenplay: Colin Bateman (from his novel).
Cinematography: Adrian Johnston.
Cast: David Thewlis, Rachel Griffiths, Jason Isaacs, Laura Fraser, Richard Gant, Robert Lindsey.
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Citation reference for this article
MLA style:
Sue McKell. "Familiar Yet Lacking: 'Divorcing Jack'." M/C Reviews 19 May 99.
[your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/screen/jack.html>.
Chicago style:
Sue McKell, "Familiar Yet Lacking: 'Divorcing Jack'," M/C Reviews 19 May 99,
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/screen/jack.html> ([your date of access]).
APA style:
Sue McKell. (1999) Familiar yet lacking: 'Divorcing Jack'. M/C Reviews 19 May 99.
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/screen/jack.html> ([your date of access]).
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![[image]](http://www.festivale.webcentral.com.au/pics/filmrvu/divorcingjack.jpg)