Andy Serkis: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

3. Martin Hannett - 24 Hour Party People (2002)

Michael Winterbottom is a very frustrating director. He's produced a huge number of films and TV series in a very short space of time - which is commendable, giving how long projects take to set up and shoot. But he works so quickly that he often doesn't develop projects as far as they could or should be, resulting in efforts like Trishna and The Look of Love which are frothy and frustratingly superficial. When it gets it right, however, you end up with great work like A Cock and Bull Story (Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon at their best), A Mighty Heart (Angelina Jolie's best performance) and 24 Hour Party People. 24 Hour Party People documents the music scene in Manchester between the height of punk in 1976 and the closing of the Hacienda nightclub in 1993. The action centres around the enigmatic Tony Wilson (Coogan), a Granada newsreporter who founds Factory Records, attracting the likes of Joy Division (later New Order) and The Happy Mondays. The film is a mixture of fact, rumour, urban myth and outright fabrication, with the characters regularly breaking the fourth wall to challenge the version of events that are playing out before them. 24 Hour Party People is a very heady film, which captures the increasingly drug-fuelled atmosphere of 'Madchester' and the increasing levels of incompetence that led to the downfall of Factory Records and the Hacienda. At the time of its release, Serkis' performance as Joy Division producer Martin Hammett was described as "the strangest of his career" - a sentiment which the real-life Tony Wilson shared. It's a bizarre but compelling performance, with Hannett's overbearing style and obsession with recording drums coming through clearly. However much or little you can discern from his performance, the film always seems emptier when he isn't on screen.