Fantastic Fear of Everything

Jack (Simon Pegg) is a children's author who has switched to the dark and eerie world of crime writing. Having researched Victorian murderers for his book, Jack has become paranoid that someone is out to get him and he now barricades himself in his London flat. He does manage to venture out to meet with his agent, Clair (Claire Higgins), who isn't enthusiastic about his latest work, wanting him to work on a children's story about a hedgehog instead. Clair's opinion changes somewhat when a Hollywood executive expresses an interest in Jack's crime novel and there is talk of a possible movie deal. Jack has to get himself together to meet Clair and the executive for dinner and so begins a series of mishaps.

Jack's flat is run down and in need of a clean up. He parades around the place in his dressing gown and underpants, has no clean clothes and is reluctant to answer the door to anyone. Managing on little sleep, Jack spends his time trying to stay sane and piecing together suspects including one man who he is convinced must be a descendant of Dr Crippen. Forced to venture out, Jack has the difficulty of going to a launderette to wash a handful of clothes and make himself presentable for his meeting. This is far from straightforward though. Jack senses someone is after him and his fears are not helped by strange noises in his own home and peculiar figures wandering the streets. The basic routine of getting ready to leave the flat goes somewhat awry when Jack is forced to leave with a knife and drying his clothes in the oven literally backfires. The question is, is Jack's fear of danger on the streets of London all in his head or is there something to justify his fears.

A Fantastic Fear of Everything started well enough and Pegg raised many smiles having to carry the film on his own for a time. The problems he creates for himself are very funny but the film loses its way somewhat in the second half when Jack heads for a launderette. What began as a fairly straightforward and quite funny comedy grew a little too incredulous in the latter stages which is a shame. This is still a good comedy and Pegg fans will likely enjoy this but compared to his other work such as Spaced and Shaun of the Dead this one pales significantly.

A Fantastic Fear of Everything is an okay comedy about a writer losing his grip on reality in switching to a genre that has him constantly on edge. There are some very funny moments in here but the second half of the film does not live up to the first. Pegg puts in another good performance but the film doesn't quite match up to his talents as a comedian.

First of all, I'd like to say that one of the advantages of Blu Ray is that the region codes aren't as stingant as with DVD. Any Blu Ray player in the states will play European disks, which makes many titles available and often at more reasonable prices than you can get in the US. This film doesn't have a US release as of yet (and might not find a large audience to merit one). I find Simon Pegg to be a comic genius, he can rarely do wrong. Spaced is one of my all-time favorite television progams. This film doesn't compare at all to Spaced, but I enjoyed it all the same. Like some of his other films, this is a dark comedy (although some won't find it "funny", there aren't any zingers or jokes, but I find the situations and Pegg's reactions to be real and humorous). It's a sort of one-man act through a large portion of it, following him around his flat as he narrates his paranoia. His character is a real sad sack, but even while watching his pathetic misadventure, you still find something relatable about him. His delusional, irrational phobias are wildly exaggerated, yet most of us can find something about them to identify with. An oddball film, unconventional story which isn't something a mass audience, or even fans of Pegg's previous work will all enjoy. Worth watching if you like off-the-wall, random movies which don't follow a standard format. It's not a story I've seen before, perhaps with good reason!

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