Tag Archive | James Marsh

Riseborough saves a sluggish Shadow Dancer

Journalist Tom Bradby’s 1998 debut novel gets the big screen treatment in James Marsh’s Shadow Dancer.  Set in the months prior to the 1994 ceasefire, this British thriller is rooted within an influential Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) family in Belfast.  Quietly rising star Andrea Riseborough is the focus of Shadow Dancer’s meticulously-paced web of betrayal, but she’s not alone in secretly pursuing her own best interests.  Distinctly British political intrigue fuels the fire of Bradby’s story, but his screenplay struggles to build up speed.

Shadow Dancer is in UK cinemas 24 August

Shadow Dancer gets off to a quick start, both in its 1973 prologue and the subsequent attempted bombing of a London Underground line twenty years later.  When Clive Owen’s MI5 agent, Mac, hits the scene, things grind to a virtual standstill.  With little dialogue and a fair amount of waiting early on, Shadow Dancer sets into a sluggishness it never quite shakes.  Once Riseborough’s Collette finally strikes a deal, for the sake of her young son, the wick is lit on the slow-burn plot that burns possibly a bit too slowly.  Placing Collette at odds with her family, though unbeknownst to them, is an intriguing premise that is made all the more threatening with the introduction of David Wilmot as the IRA’s head rat catcher.  Calmly menacing, Wilmot’s Kevin acts as something of an internal affairs agent with a license to kill for the terrorist group.  His exchanges with Riseborough are rife with tension and unassumingly become the film’s high points.  Shadow Dancer presents a handful of such suspenseful moments, but fails to sustain the momentum whilst moving from one to the next.

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