Middletown

Derek Malcolm's rating
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The sins of a preacherman

Unhinged: Matthew Macfadyen stars in Middletown

Set in what is presumably a Northern Irish town in the Eighties, Brian Kirk's film has Matthew Macfadyen as a fundamentalist Protestant preacher who arrives in Middletown to rid it of evil - and there is quite a lot of it about.

Nothing good is going to come of the preacher's dotty rantings but somehow he manages to get the townspeople on his side against his own brother. This seems unlikely, as he is clearly unhinged.

So what we eventually get is pure melodrama that favours chasing the style of gothic thrillers over making dramatic sense. Which is a pity, since the cast (including Eva Birthistle and Sorcha Cusack) is able and the cinematography appropriately menacing.