Tag Archives: Guy Fawkes

Gunpowder, Treason & Plot (2004) is Robert Carlyle at his most Robert Carlyle.

For the exposition, I thought this one of the worst performances I’d ever seen. It was like Carlyle watched Richard III – play or any movie – and decided to limp about like Crookback for the duration of a gunpowder plot. And spice it up with a bit of Begbie. His James VI/I is a foul-mouthed little bastard with no grace or manners, an opportunistic cockroach who would murder an OAP for a bag of sugar.

I was thinking this and then I thought: this is 1603+. These creatures chucked one another onto bonfires and ripped their entrails apart. And the same sort would do the same today if they could. And then I got the genius of the performance.

Carlyle is keeping it real.

This is the only place I could find it. It’s very good, and with a young(ish) Michael Fassbender as Guy Fawkes:

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