Killing Bono Review

• 16th Aug 2011

I’m sure the title of this film is something almost everybody’s wanted to do at one time or another. Based on failed rocker Neil McCormick’s bestselling 2003 memoir Killing Bono: I Was Bono’s Doppelgänger, Killing Bono opens with McCormick (Ben Barnes, Prince Caspian, Dorian Gray) lurking in a crowd of U2 fans and brandishing a gun in Bono’s direction. Then we flash back to his youth where we learn that he went to school with both Bono (real name Paul Hewson) and The Edge (AKA David Howell Evans) and that they were in rival bands. Bono offers Neil’s brother Ivan (the very likeable Robert Sheehan, Misfits) a place in the band which (unbeknownst to Ivan) he blocks as he thinks they can make it on their own. Little does he know that U2 are destined to become one of the biggest bands on the planet, while he and his brother will drift quietly into musical obscurity, mainly down to his own misguided need to get there without riding on U2’s coat-tails.

We’ve all been there – outwardly pleased for our friends when they start doing well, all the while quietly hating their guts. (Go on, you know you have.) Neil starts to feel like his failures are directly linked U2’s successes but can’t see that it’s his own choices that are crapping all over his music career – he constantly shoots himself in the wah-wah pedal. And not in an endearing klutzy way; it’s all about his massive ego. Mistake number 1: fund your gigs with money from dodgy Irish gangster Leo (Ralph Brown); mistake number 2: sleep with record producer’s wife; mistake number 3: refuse to support U2. The list goes on. And that’s the first problem with this film – it’s very hard to sympathise with Neil. Even the usually charming Ben Barnes and his puppy dog eyes fail to elicit much in the way of empathy.

Oddly, Bono actually comes out of this really well (if as a bit of a shortarse). He’s played by Martin McCann who manages to not make him seem like a wanker – a feat that Bono himself hasn’t managed so far. Peter Serafinowicz is, as always, very entertaining as the band’s harassed record producer and it also has the much missed Pete Postlethwaite in his final film role as the brothers’ flamboyant gay landlord. Krysten Ritter as Gloria, Neil’s girlfriend, doesn’t have much to do other than get cheated on.

Director Nick Hamm (Off The Hook, Godsend and The Hole) can’t seem to decide what type of film he wants Killing Bono to be. Is it a comedy or a drama (I refuse to use the word dramedy)? Despite a script written by comedy legends Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (The Likely Lads! The Two Ronnies! Porridge! And other more modern stuff!) the comedy just isn’t that funny, and the drama just not that affecting. There are a few funny moments along the way as well as some stuff that might make you go a bit misty-eyed. And if you’re a die-hard U2 fan you might enjoy the background you get on the band. But as a whole, it’s just not really enough. And nothing much in the way of special features doesn’t do anything to improve the package.

Emma Wilkin