Film review: Darragh Humphreys is terrific fun in Fran the Man

Plus review of The Amateur and One To One

Darragh Humphreys is terrific fun as the embattled Fran

Fran the Man

★★★☆☆

Football is a team game, but one man — Pele, Maradona, Fran Costello — can be the difference between a good side and a team of immortals. Fran the Man (12A) stars Darragh Humphreys as Fran, assistant manager of St Peter’s Celtic in the footballing heartland of Sallynoggin, a humble slogger who suddenly goes viral when he calls national treasure Brian Kerr a ‘snakey geebag’ live on air during the televised draw for the FAI Cup.

With St Peter’s drawn to play Shamrock Rovers, a documentary crew arrives to shadow Fran during the run-up to the biggest tie in the club’s history; unfortunately, the filming coincides with a Garda investigation into international corruption and match-fixing that centres on St Peter’s Celtic, the manager Jim O’Dea (Ardal O’Hanlon) and the club’s sponsor, local businesswoman Dympna Greene (Deirdre O’Kane). Fran is reluctant to get involved; but can he resist a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be hailed as ‘the man who saved football’?

Ardal O'Hanlon in Fran the Man

Darragh Humphreys is terrific fun as the embattled Fran, reprising his role from the Setanta Sports series that ran from 2009-2011: The very definition of a tracksuit coach, Fran even gets a wholly unexpected chance at romance when he signs the promising young Bobby Charlton (Darren Dixon) and is obliged to negotiate contracts with Bobby’s glamorous mum Jackie (Amy Huberman).

Written by Richie Conroy and directed by Stephen Bradley, Fran the Man is a mockumentary of very broad comedy, although the talented supporting cast — which includes Risteárd Cooper and Toni O’Rourke playing hard-boiled detectives — makes the most of the swirling absurdity and the occasional zinger.

First among equals is Ardal O’Hanlon, who needs only a sheepskin coat to complete his comic skewering of the stereotypically swaggering, blustering football manager, spewing clichés and sowing chaos every time he ventures near a football pitch. O jogo bonito it is not, but it would take a heart of stone not to root for the poignant Fran as he goes to war against corruption, the footballing gods, and his own limitations.

theatrical release

The Amateur

★★★☆☆

The Amateur

The Amateur (12) stars Rami Malek as Charlie Heller, a lowly US intelligence analyst who is devastated when his wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan) is killed during a terrorist attack in London.

When his superiors (Julianne Nicholson, Holt McCallany) refuse to take action, Charlie takes the law into his own hands, blackmailing the CIA and setting off on a global odyssey in a bid to murder his wife’s killers. Adapted from a novel by Robert Littell and directed by James Hawes, The Amateur opens strongly: Malek is excellently cast as the anti-Jason Bourne, a quietly-spoken desk jockey who understands — courtesy of his reluctant handler, Colonel Henderson (Laurence Fishburne) — that he lacks the killer instinct, and is thus obliged to find inventive ways of achieving his goals. Gradually, however, the scenarios become increasingly implausible, until Charlie is effectively out-Bonding Bond as he flits from London to Paris, and on to Romania and Russia, to ensnare and execute his prey.

theatrical release

One to One

★★★★★

John Lennon and Yoko Ono

In 1971, John Lennon and Yoko Ono fled London’s post-Beatles media frenzy for New York; One to One (15A), a documentary directed by Sam Rice-Edwards and Kevin McDonald, focuses on the year that followed, when they holed up in a small apartment in Greenwich Village. “Flower power didn’t work,” declares John, and so he reinvents himself as a “revolutionary artist”, joining forces with fellow radicals to protest against the Vietnam War and the Nixon era’s “atmosphere of death”.

Splicing historical footage of John and Yoko with TV clips of the time (TV shows and old movies, advertisements, interviews), the film’s ostensibly scattergun approach is not only cohesive and addictive but genuinely moving, with the live offerings from John and Yoko’s One to One benefit gigs at Madison Square Gardens — Lennon’s only full-length performances after leaving The Beatles — a considerable bonus.

theatrical release