As much as I like Liam Neeson, it's fair to say the big Irishman is hardly the best at adopting other accents. I'll never truly pinpoint what exactly his accent is meant to be in the Taken franchise, or whatever identikit movie he's been making ever since.
Big fan of Peter Swan, Neeson's character from the giallo-esque The Dead Pool (1988), the fifth and final instalment in Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry series of films. Swan is a trashy horror director who thinks of himself as something of a luvvie. After a comical scene where Jim Carrey's punk rocker, Johnny Squares, mimes his way through Guns 'N' Roses' Welcome to the Jungle, Neeson's English accent becomes comically apparent in this scene. His vowel chewing delivers the best line in the entire film, "it's not a rip-off, it's a hummage". No idea what a "hummage" is, but I do know a hilarious homage when I see one. His ridicoulous accent, along with his schlockmeister standards, makes Neeson's Peter Swan a very likeable character.
The Dead Pool might be the weakest entry in the Dirty Harry films, but there's still a lot to love about it: it's blessed with way superior commentary on the film industry than Fellini's insomnia curing 8½ (1963); a Pauline Kael style film critic coming to a grisly end; and of course, a highly entertaining Bullitt (1968) inspired chase sequence with a remote controlled car:
Speaking of dead pools.
2 comments:
That Carrey scene >>>>>>> Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.
Wish I could undergo the same procedure to make me forget that film.
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