Another Times Review of Middletown (Mar 2007)

Thanks to 6point7 for the following reviews which appears in the Times in March 2007

A simplistic statement about religious
fundamentalism, this drama stars Matthew Macfadyen as
a Protestant minister who, in the 1950s, returns to
his Northern Irish home town and proceeds to harangue
the locals, including his own relatives, in a manner
that makes Ian Paisley seem wishy-washy. The director,
Brian Kirk, and writer, Daragh Carville, were
evidently aiming for an Ulster version of an American
gothic melodrama, but the humdrum reality of the
setting is unignorable. Thus, when the story becomes
larger than life, it just seems silly. One star.
Edward Porter

"Kirk's debut stars Macfadyen as a newly ordained
minister who takes over the parish of his Northern
Irish home town in the early 1960s. His apprenticeship
in Africa must have been a fierce one, as it is with
fire-and-brimstone zeal that he attempts to knock
Middletown's bibulous cock fight-loving citizens into
shape.

As his dogmatism brings him into conflict with his
father (McSorley), brother (Mays) and pregnant
sister-in-law (Eva Birthistle), it seems that we are
set for an absorbing debate between Protestant
austerity and earthier values. But this well-acted,
strikingly photographed film is ultimately capsized by
the sheer monstrousness of Macfadyen's character,
lurching in tone from Ballykissangel to Halloween in
the space of less than an hour and a half. 2 stars. Ed
Potton.