SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET

By Matt Holmes / July 1, 2011

Tim Burton Written by John Logan Based on the play by Stephen Sondheim & Hugh Wheeler and also the play by Christopher Bond Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jamie Campbell Bower, Laura Michelle Kelly, Jayne Wisener, Ed Sanders Distributed by Paramount Pictures, Dreamworks & Warner Bros. Film gets a wide release in the U.K. on Jan 25th, 2008 Review by Matt Holmes

rating: 5

Sweeney Todd, the bloodiest of all the musicals, the closest shave of sinister and macabre and the glorious Victorian time period which brought out the very best of horror fiction writers Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, HG Wells and Bram Stoker.... who all lived through that dark and mysterious period. We've already seen From Hell (which Depp also happened to star in) adapt the legend of the 19th century serial prostitute serial killing rapist Jack "The Ripper" into an interesting yet very conventional slasher movie from The Hughes Brothers but what of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street and the fanciful Tim Burton, a director who hasn't been this dark in a decade? How would his first venture into a live-action musical turn out, where characters sing rather than talk to each other, and I've made it well known for months that it's a genre I usually hate but I will tell ya folks... I absolutely loved this film like no Burton film since Batman. There's always been an aura around Sweeney Todd. Legend has it that a barber in the early 1800's would slit the throat of his customers and dispose of the bodies into his meat pies, though the first known written account of Todd was actually in a "penny dreadful" novel written in 1846. No proof therefore has ever existed of a real life serial killing barber in London or that there was ever even a barber shop on Fleet Street. However it is a well known fact that those mid 19th century penny dreadfuls were often re-tellings of true crimes, usually found by the book's author in local newspapers. It's a myth we will never truly get to the bottom of or discover which aspects of it are true but the legend itself has always stayed strong and it's the kind of fictional tale that is flexible enough to exist as a straight film, a musical, a t.v. drama, novel, play... or anything. Burton's adaptation of the tale is from the must well known version of Todd, the Stephen Sondheim 1979 Tony Award Winning Broadway hit which is the kind of material that fits the eccentric and bizarre director like a glove. Just like Sleepy Hollow, it's a legend that Burton feels... something he breathes... something he eats...and it shows, with Johnny Depp once again being his ever reliable Lon Chaney. It's just as over-the-top too. Where heads would roll in Sleepy Hollow throats are slashed in a darkly comedic manner, blood spurting as wildly as a Tarantino movie and a thirst for murder and revenge at the very heart of the story. Helena Bonham Carter throws in the one-liners as Todd's accomplice Mrs. Lovett the baker of the man filled pies (though as typical Burton style with his partner, he doesn't give her much of a character) and Borat'sSacha Baron Cohen brings the light hearted and more mainstream comic relief with his enjoyable scene as 'the world's best barber' or so he thinks anyway until a face/off with Todd doesn't bring him the best of results. Alan Rickman looks like he's having a whale of a time as Jude Turpin, the villain at the crux of the story for separating Todd and his wife by sending him to jail in the prologue to the film. In wondrously Hans Gruber style, Rickman doesn't care that he is the bad guy at all and if the whole city is hung for petty crimes including teenagers and children, then so be it! Todd isn't too far behind this philosophy though. He blames the whole of the city for what happened to his family and he wants every innocent man in London to suffer... and he will slit the throat of them all to act out his revenge and sadly, women and boys are not safe either. This leads to a great confrontation between Rickman and Depp which is excitingly sinister and it projected a director and his two actors have a wonderful time playing out the material together. Are we so drawn in my Todd that we actually want him to slit the throats of every customer that works through his shop door? Depp is so strong in this role, I'm convinced I was. Tim Burton working at a level he hasn't reached in years has created an absolute visual and audibly thunderous work of art, which relies heavily on his two decade experience of knowing how to tell a story through the camera, because his fare and fluid movement that keeps this tale in motion. Burton shows amazing faith in his actors, none of whom are trained singers but can all carry a note to a degree, and especially Depp who was able to make the voice and tone of the character completely his own. This might just be Depp's best ever accomplishment and that Oscar nomination he received today is well deserved because it takes a special kind of actor to perform at this level. Sweeney Todd is completely alive, each musical rendition bringing out the best artistic talent of a director that has never been challenged like this before. It's a full blown-out musical, characters not talking to each other but signing their inner deepest thoughts and it could soon have been a wink-wink to the audience disaster like these projects so often do but here he gives us a real production. That's the best way to describe Sweeney Todd, he has created a production. The sets, the character designs, the costumes, the amazing blend of Sondheim's Herman-esque score (which will stay with me forever), the set pieces, the performances and his direction. Sweeney Todd is the best musical I have ever seen transformed onto the big screen. Forget Moulin Rouge, laugh in the face of Dreamgirls and Hairspray. And what's that you say, LITTLE SHOP OF WHAT? Nah not for me. Sweeney hit's the genre mark and cannot be beaten. Five bloody stars!