Hatchet Job

What’s the point of it all, really?

No, not life. Something far more important than that. Movie reviews. The job of the film critic. How many of us are really influenced by what the (mostly) middle-aged men say?

Well, me for a start, middle-aged (just) man (definitely) that I am. I’ve been a film fan for as long as I can remember. For me a rare treat in term time was being able to stay up to watch Barry Norman on the BBC’s Film [insert year here]. I know. Most of you would have settled for sweets. I wasn’t and am not averse to sweets but that programme was kryptonite for me, destroying the next day’s productivity and inevitably alerting me to something I had to see. From I don’t know what age I would devour the film review pages of newspapers. Over the subsequent years the opinions of reviewers I trust has shaped what I do and don’t see. Not definitively, but I’ll let a list of 5 or so writers and broadcasters heavily influence for what I’ll give up my time and money. Since moving to South Africa that’s been harder – many of the films I want to see are smaller films which may well not get a release here; or if they do, it will be significantly delayed. This hasn’t deadened my love for good film criticism – if anything it’s raised it. Online, primarily, I read or listen to a good few hours’ worth of content each week. An entertaining and intelligent review of a film I might never see, positive or negative, feeds my soul in a very particular way.

Which brings me to this book, Hatchet Job by Mark Kermode. He’s the best known film reviewer in the UK. I’ve been listening to him on the radio for years, and the internet means I still can here in Cape Town. His weekly show is downloaded by millions. That’s serious reach. He and his co-host, the British broadcasting institution Simon Mayo, witter intelligently and entertainingly for close on two hours each week about film releases and matters related. Over the years these two have kept me going through boredom, busyness, trauma, depression, chronic pain, moving life to the other side of the world, fun, fear and a whole lot more besides. I can’t imagine life without my weekly dose.

This latest book from Mark Kermode asks the simple question of the role of the film critic. It’s easy to read, funny and full of entertaining stories and anecdotes from his years in the business. With the slow death of print news media it’s easy to imagine a world in which the role of the professional film critic becomes ever more irrelevant. After all, as Kermode demonstrates here, it’s not the critic whose opinion shapes how films are made or received. It’s the audience, the money in the bank. Pure and simple. It seems, though, however counter-intuitive this may seem, that more people than ever want a critic’s intelligent, informed and contextualised opinion. Even – or perhaps especially – if they’ve already seen the film. People see something, think about it – then want to know what others who know more about film than they do think. The freely available online content is viewed, read, heard by thousands upon thousands upon millions. Film critics are more consulted than ever before; they simply need to be cleverer about how they use their expertise to pay the bills.

Compared to many amateur film bloggers, the reviews I write here carry little weight. Apparently they shape the film-watching of a few of you; in reality, though, I don’t see enough to be a film critic. I’m simply someone who writes about most of the films I see. I write because I like films, and I like writing. Really, that’s it. Anything else is a side benefit. I need the professional film critics – especially Mark Kermode – because they entertain, stimulate and inform me. When I see a film and prepare to write about it, I remind myself of what he and one or two others have said about it. I never, no matter what others may imagine, allow a critic to tell me what to think; I simply want to see if they’ve seen something in the film that I haven’t or if my facts are correct and so on. I want to know what they think because if they think something different to me it means I may have missed something; that may mean I need to think some more, or even watch again. It may not change my opinion, but it will mean I’ve thought properly about the film and my opinion.

Does that seem excessive? Maybe it is. Or maybe not. When many people spend much time and millions of dollars making a film, I think it’s important not just to arrive blindly at an opinion, but to do justice to the blood, sweat and tears that went into the making of the film to allow that opinion to be informed and well-formed. I enjoy doing so too – this is a hobby for me, something that gives me life to do. If I thought for a moment that doing so, putting my content up for free, was leading to critics like Kermode being made irrelevant or redundant I’d stop in a shot. The pleasure I glean from them means too much to me to lose. For anyone who cares about film, this is a book to read and treasure.

I rated this book 4/5 on goodreads.com