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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 24 January 2008

Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman in a scene from Sweeney Todd

Demon vision of barbourous

SWEENEY TODD
Directed by TIM BURTON
Certificate 18

“ATTEND the tale of Sweeney Todd…his skin was pale and his eye was odd!”
Thus the opening line of one of the great stage musicals, and who better to bring it to the screen than heart-throb Johnny Depp?
He teams up once again with maverick director Tim Burton to relate the legendary tale of the demon barber of Fleet Street in a compelling drama that is as dark and intriguing as you could wish for.
Todd (Depp) returns to Victorian London after escaping from wrongful imprisonment in the penal colonies in Australia. His sole aim: to exact revenge on the sadistic Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman at his wicked best) who put him there, as well as the society that wronged him.
He finds lodging where he once lived above a pie shop run by scheming Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) – who has kept his cut-throat razors in case he ever returns.
There’s a barber’s chair in the attic – and a meat-grinder in the cellar at the bottom of a chute. What more can a lone avenger wish for?
The pie shop thrives, as the customers consume the tasty offerings and Todd is consumed by his own desire for vengeance.
In the hands of Tim Burton, never one to do anything by halves, we are treated to a gruesome diet of gore and gloom, with the screen splashed with blood and much of the film shot in half-darkness.
From cut-throat pirate of the Caribbean to cut-throat razor-wielding nemesis, Depp commands the screen with undisguised relish, resembling a figure from one of those old silent films with black circles around his eyes and a chalk-white face.
“These are my friends,” he muses, lovingly fingering a box of cut-throat razors as he sets up shop above the meat pie café.
But he also proves himself to be the possessor of a strong baritone voice, and the Pretty Women duet he performs with Alan Rickman while the judge relaxes unwittingly at his mercy in the barber’s chair carries a tension that will send a chill down your spine.
Be prepared for a blood-thirsty outing on a bad hair day. The final scenes are pure Grand Guignol, with the sewers running red as the basement below Mrs Lovett’s establishment is turned into a slaughterhouse.
As for the vocals, I am aware that Stephen Sondheim’s original stage musical won a clutch of awards back in 1979 – but for the life of me I can’t remember the songs, nor did I leave the cinema this week humming a single note from any of them.
But the acting is terrific, with great support from Timothy Spall as the evil Beadle and the surprise casting of Sacha Baron Cohen as a rival barber.
Meat pies, anyone?

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