Movie Review: When Brendan Met Trudy

Story: Clinging to my confessed adoration of all things Irish I was looking forward to When Brendan Met Trudy. Oh well, every Irish film is not a winner. The story's premise is an old one -- a goody-two-shoes young man (he even belongs to a choir) meets a wild and wacky young woman and falls head over heels in love with her. He slowly but surely comes out of his shell. There are some very funny moments (too few) but for the most part it just doesn't have the needed spark. Screenwriter and novelist Roddy Doyle's previous trilogy was far more successful when brought to the screen (The Commitments, The Van, and 'Snapper - I liked all of those and they are worthy rentals). First time film director Kieron J. Walsh manages to miss a good opportunity with the material he was given. It was very refreshing, however, to see a Dublin depicted with people who had jobs and lived in nice homes. There was not one car bomb explosion in the entire picture.

Acting: Peter MacDonald as Brendan has a lot of potential and Flora Montgomery as Trudy just seemed to be trying way too hard (she has an uncanny resemblance to Ellen Degeneres).

Critters: None that I can remember.

Food: Hearty Irish 'meat and potato' meals.

Visual Art: Some wonderfully tacky stuff in the suburban homes.

Blatant Product Placement: Clarke's shoes

Soundtrack: Funny

Opening Titles: Don't remember -- probably not worth remembering.

Theater Audience: Pretty empty. We were the only ones laughing.

Squirm Scale: 3 - too much talk about castration and there were some scatological images.

Oscar Worthy: No

Nit Picking: I wanted it to be oh so much better than it was......SHITE!

Big Screen or Rental: Rent the other three films by Roddy Doyle mentioned above.

Length: 100 minutes

LOBO HOWLS: 5