No, not the 1998 Dutch film of the same name or even the
Jeff Bridges remake of that from 1993, this one is a bunch of Scotsmen on a
lighthouse shouting a lot in a 2018 flick that had passed me by.
I found this in a charity shop for 10p and although it was
probably worth that I’m glad that I didn’t invest more – apart from my precious
time!
The film is based on the real-life disappearance of three lighthouse
keepers from the Flannan Isle lighthouse in 1900. The official report concluded
that the men were most likely swept out to sea, but that would be somewhat prosaic
for a movie – so let’s have some gold and murder to spice things up!
I’m no puritan, but I have to say if these men were my
relatives I’d be a bit upset at seeing them portrayed as a bunch of murdering psychos
who swear for Scotland and have a Gollum type fascination for the shiny stuff.
The film opens with the three men taking over a remote
lighthouse for a few weeks. We have Peter Mullen and Gerard Butler (Trinity
House should be investigated if that casting is an accurate depiction of the
men involved!) along with a young lad, there on his first stint. We get a brief
idea of what’s involved with the light being cleaned and the foghorn tested
before the action proper begins.
The men find a washed-up lifeboat with a body nearby. The
body, in what becomes a recurring theme, doesn’t stay dead for long as the
seaman wakes up and starts to fight the younger keeper. Our man manages to bash
the salty tar’s head in with a rock, before the body and a mysterious box are
recovered to the lighthouse station.
Mullen decrees that the box remain locked but within five
minutes he’s opened it up and found it to be full of gold bars. He initially
tries to keep the hoard to himself but soon the other two get wind of the
treasure and the three plot to keep the loot. Butler suggests someone will come
looking for the gold and he’s proven right within another five minutes.
The crew show themselves up to be inept liars, as the owners
of the gold aren’t convinced with the lads’ tall tale that the box has already
been handed over to the authorities. After a brief stramash our lads have
another two bodies on their hands – wait, three as Butler carelessly whacks a
young lad causing Paisley's finest no end of trauma and bad acting.
The three men now have a quandary – what to do with the loot
and with each other as tensions and suspicions multiply.
This was an OK kind of film but it’s easy to see why it sank
without trace. Mullen and a rather portly Butler play to form with a lot of
shouting and swearing. Butler’s trip into mania and back again isn’t believable
nor is Mullen’s relative indifference to the horrors unfolding in front of him.
There are a lot of long pauses and drawn-out scenes that appear to be an attempt
to show the malaise and isolation of the situation but it just looks like so
much constipation.
The settings were good, but I didn’t buy into the tension or
that these three men would turn to murder over a pile of metal – this is no ‘Treasure
of the Sierra Madre’. It was a passable 100 minutes, but one that offered no
insight into the true events of Flannan Isle nor a compelling narrative for a
standalone feature.
THE Tag Line - Light's Out! 56%
