On P List of Movie Reviews

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Prick Up Your Ears (1987)

Rate: 7
Viewed: 9/17

PrickUp
9/17: This may be the first time ever that I can say Gary Oldman can act for once after dropping the pretentiousness to play his role straight.

By far, the best performance of Prick Up Your Ears, a gay movie about two aspiring real-life writers, goes to Alfred Molina who's so funny that he doesn't have to try to. According to Wikipedia, the murder did happen in 1967 when Kenneth Halliwell "bludgeoned 34-year-old Joe Orton to death at their home in Islington, London, with nine hammer blows to the head, and then killed himself with an overdose of Nembutal."

Unfortunately, it doesn't rise enough to be a good biopic, choosing to go in a circular manner until the murder. In other words, it runs on quirks to be a strange black comedy with a weird ending. There's a lack of substance as well. If I think about the title, it means "stick it up in the arse." By the way, John Lahr, who wrote the biography of Joe Orton, is the son of Bert Lahr who played the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz.

All in all, Prick Up Your Ears isn't deep as I've hoped for, but the performances are well-done.