Fisherman’s Friends: One And All
There’s a kernel of a fantastic movie here. But it’s like a small fishing boat, dwarfed by a surrounding ocean of mediocrity.
In this sequel to the smash hit (?) original, the salty singing group from Cornwall are struggling on the road. Their first album was a hit, but months of performing at pubs and venues around the country are taking their toll, as is the trauma from the death of band leader Jim’s (James Purefoy) Dad. Jim takes to the drink, and withdraws into himself - eventually acting so poorly to a new hire that the band loses their contract with Universal Music. Jim, with the help of former wayward pop star Aubrey Flynn (Imelda May), must sober up and get the band back on track with a stage performance at Glastonbury.
Fisherman’s Friends: One and All is the sort of movie that you of course don’t expect much going into. The based on a true story script, and truly wholesome content, make this the sort of movie whose peak in the best case scenario is going to be a feel good family classic. Alas, the movie never remotely achieves that level of class - but that is hardly down to a lack of potential.
No, the movie fails primarily because of a seemingly incessant desire from the filmmakers to cram every possible storyline into the film. It’s like they plotted out an 8 season long TV series, and when it got cut down to a single film, decided to still cram every possible occurrence from that original 100+ episode tv run into the just shy of 2 hour runtime.
There’s the relatively obvious main plot, where Jim deals with the death of his father and alcoholism to eventual rescue the band from an issue his problems caused. But then there’s also a plot line where one of the band members is seen to have an affair, another where a great grandmother and her great granddaughter fall down a well (leading to a brief Top Gun-esque helicopter rescue sequence), one where a group of music execs find the pleasures of country living, another where a new singer joins the band, one where a reclusive Irish pop star moves to a small town, a full on romance plot, and a tale of an elderly singer getting woke PC training and becoming a staunch feminist. It’s not just jam packed with poorly tackled through lines, it also FEELS SO BLOODY LONG! I was shocked, writing this review, to discover that the film was only 1 hour 53 minutes. I thought it was at least two weeks long.
The real issue is that there is a crumb of something interesting here. Jim’s struggles with losing his father are truly engaging, and James Purefoy is a talent of the highest order. His work in this film is good, and on the boat as he trawls for fish while imagining discussions with his recently passed father he does particularly great work.
There’s always more to dislike about a movie that has potential and fails with it, than one which is doomed to fail from the off and does so. Fisherman’s Friends: One and All is an interesting proposition because it appeared, from the off, to be the latter - a decidedly middling attempt at hitting a decidedly middling result. Somehow, it stumbled onto a briefly interesting sliver of potential, but in doing so it shoots itself in the foot, because we see that this cast, and these filmmakers, could do something worthy with this idea - they’ve just chosen not to. Or more accurately, not chosen; not chosen what story to tell, and instead just told every single thing that possibly came to mind.
