I decided to get out The Tiger’s Tail based on two facts. 1. Brendan Gleeson is a great actor and 2. John Boorman can be a great director.

The acting in this film is poor enough, although I wonder is a lot of that to do with the quality of the script… I’m not going to waste too much time reviewing this film, as it has already stolen over an hour and a half of my life.

The Tiger’s Tail tells the story of a successful property developer (benefitting from the economic boom in Ireland known as the Celtic Tiger) who discovers he has a double who is shadowing him, intending to take over his life.

The script hammers in any possible cliched Celtic Tiger reference it possibly can, along with desperately ham-fisted references to the evils of capitalism. There’s property developers, bribes, national stadiums, abuse by clerics, a horribly out of date ‘E’ scene, references to our lack of care for the infirm… the list goes on.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to watch a film where a greedy property developer gets his come-uppance in a modern Ireland, but while there was quite possibly an idea for a film in there somewhere, but unfortunately the script read like the first draft of the plot outline rather than even a first draft script.