Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Tilda Swinton, LeBron James, Daniel Radcliffe, Marissa Tomei, Vanessa Bayer, Brie Larson, Evan Brinkman, Mike Birbiglia, Norman Lloyd, Keith Robinson, Marina Franklin, John Cena, Randall Park, John Glaser, Colin Quinn, Dan Soder,  Devin Fabry, Carla Oudin, Dave Attell, Ezra Miller, Matthew Broderick, Marv Albert, Chris Evert.

Comedy may be subjective but there is a statement to be made about how American film comedy has been perceived in the last couple of decades. Gone are the days it seems when Mel Brooks could capture a moment in time or when the likes of Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, Stripes, Scrooged or Private Benjamin could really hold the cinema box office open for weeks on end. Now, with the very obvious aside to the likes of films such as Blue Jasmine and St. Vincent, American film comedy, unlike its television series, has lost its allure and its true writing heroes. That is perhaps apart from the enormously talented Amy Schumer and her film Trainwreck.

Where Trainwreck arguably succeeds compared to other American film comedies is in that it just doesn’t feel like an American comedy, if anything and despite its beautiful setting of New York and the very obvious American sports stars being seen throughout, is in the way it is written, perhaps just to the extreme of something of what Richard Curtis would present on screen. Whilst being a tremendous walking advert for the comedy circuit in the States, Trainwreck really does come across more as being something that a British comedy writer would pitch and present and it is to the acknowledgment of Ms. Schumer’s great skill that she manages to convey such pleasure in her work.

Whereas Ms. Schumer is the undisputed and deserving star of the film, the addition of the marvellous and almost unrecognisable Tilda Swinton radiates a disturbingly accurate portrayal of the type of journalistic alligator approach that is all too prevalent in many of the magazines circulating the globe, the jealous gaze in which to mock, sneer and devalue is base currency. Ms. Swinton, along with fellow British actor Daniel Radcliffe, who appears mise en abyme style, really set the tone for the film and the surprising smile of delight that the cinema goer finds upon their face as Ms. Schumer’s work comes to its natural and fulfilling conclusion.

With excellent contributions from wrestler John Cena and the unexpected coolness displayed by basketball star LeBron James, Trainwreck is arguably one of the surprise films of the year; a real pick me up after so much devastatingly poor comedy from the other side of the pond.

Ian D. Hall