Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown
| Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by |
Keith Allen Peter Richardson |
| Written by | Keith Allen & Peter Richardson |
| Starring | Keith Allen Peter Richardson Jim Broadbent Phil Cornwell Jim Carter |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
32 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown is a short comedy film made by The Comic Strip for the BBC, first broadcast in the UK in 1993.
The film employs techniques of metafictional parody to make overt critical comparisons between 1990s TV detective shows and their 1970s counterparts. The editorial line taken throughout the film presents a very affectionate portrayal of several of these 1970s shows, despite acknowledging their use of styles and methods that had since become somewhat clichéd.
The title parodies the title of the 1988 film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
Writer-directors Keith Allen and Peter Richardson revive their characters Bonehead and Foyle from the 1984 Comic Strip film The Bullshitters, which was itself a parody of The Professionals.
As in the previous film, Bonehead and Foyle attach great importance to guns, witty one-liners and self-conscious efforts at looking un-self-consciously good on-screen. They manoeuvre and park their car – a Ford Capri, as used in The Professionals – with almost exclusive use of handbrake turns, and during the film's climax they concentrate on seeking out piles of boxes to drive through or puddles to splash through, in order to make their shots appear more dynamic.
For the second half of the film they again appear without shirts and, finally, without trousers.
Introduced as "Shouting George from The Weeny", George is based on Jack Regan of The Sweeney. He is played by Jim Broadbent, and his portrayal is remarkably close to the original.
George uses London slang extensively, shouts, chain-smokes and insists on calling his commanding officer "guv". His detective methods involve visiting East End "villains' drinkers" in search of information. In common with Bonehead and Foyle he drives and parks his car – a 1970s Ford Granada, as seen in The Sweeney – recklessly.
...
Wikipedia