Three and Out Review

After watching the new Brit comedy "Three and Out" I couldn't help imagining how the initial pitch to get it made might have gone - "yeah so basically it's a comedy about a tube driver who is looking for someone to commit suicide under his train so he can make a ton of money". Mmmm, well the pitch obviously worked because the film is very much out there.

MacKenzie Crook, of The Office fame, stars as said tube driver, Paul. A man who despite his desire to moonlight as a novelist after the hours he puts in as a driver is living a sad and lonely life. To top this off two people have died under his train in as many weeks, and he saw it with his own eyes! After two of his colleagues tell him that you receive a big payout if three people die under your train within a month, he considers the money, sees himself living in an idyllic writer's cottage in remote Scotland and sets about searching for a candidate. After an embarrassing run in with a man who wants to be eaten to death, he meets Tommy, (Colm Meaney) a man who has lost everything and is about to end his life.

If Paul is somewhat melancholy and subdued in nature, then Tommy is his opposite and the pair become something of an odd couple as Tommy convinces Paul to help him settle some old scores before doing him the ultimate favour. Cue Tommy's past, complete with nemesis, ex-wife (Imelda Staunton) and understandably angry daughter Charlie, played by soon to be Bond girl Gemma Arterton who MacKenzie Crook has the good fortune to cosy up to.

"Three and Out" asks the question how far would you go to change your life? And in this film's case, the answer is far enough to learn a great deal about what's really important while creating a respectable piece of comic entertainment.