The Tiger's Tail review

You get two Brendan Gleesons for the price of one in John Boorman’s Dublin-set comedy, though neither is shown to his advantage in this uncomfortable mix of social satire and over-ripe melodrama. The plot in this fanciful tale hinges on a corny doppelgänger device that’s all the more preposterous for being taken at face value, as a wealthy developer’s life is hijacked overnight by his identical twin. But what might have been a playful spin on The Prince And The Pauper is swiftly sabotaged by plot contrivances almost as laughable as the Oirish accent Kim Cattrall sports as Gleeson Mark One’s pampered trophy wife. Boorman’s cue for this unlikely potboiler was his mounting disenchantment with Ireland’s economic revival – the ‘Celtic Tiger’ to which the title refers – and the resulting yawning gap between its rich and poor. It’s hard to see, though, what a film as half-baked as this can add to that debate.