Simon Pegg: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

3. Jack €“ A Fantastic Fear Of Everything

a fantastic fear of everything This just seems like it was an impossibly bad idea in a way only a film featuring stereotypical accented Vietnamese women and outrageously flamboyant homosexuals can be. Intentionally low-budget, A Fantastic Fear of Everything featured Pegg as Jack, a children€™s author turned crime novelist who becomes totally obsessed with serial killers until he's scared to do anything. As befitting the role, Pegg invests in several neuroses and becomes pretty much afraid of everything. However, the role is just too one-note. The idea of somebody being afraid of something in just about every situation he encounters (seriously, who€™s scare of launderettes?) can become grating rather quickly, and you€™re overloaded with too much slapstick from the word go. Couple this with an extremely fraught persona and a hodgepodge of a plot and you€™ve got something of a disaster on your hands. Basically, Pegg€™s on a hiding to nothing in this role €“ the character is unsympathetic, he doesn€™t get any good lines and any chance he had of shining as a pratfaller is taken out back and shot within the opener. It€™s a simple case of overkill €“ watching a character be neurotic can be funny if it€™s part of a unified whole, yet with Jack it appears as if that€™s all there is to him, and this results in something painful to watch.
Contributor
Contributor

Durham University graduate and qualified sports journalist. Very good at sitting down and watching things. Can multi-task this with playing computer games. Football Manager addict who has taken Shrewsbury Town to the summit of the Premier League. You can follow me at @Ed_OwenUK, if you like ramblings about Newcastle United and A Place in the Sun. If you don't, I don't know what I can do for you.