8/10
Brimstone & Treacle
20 October 2007
Warning: Spoilers
This is a movie from 1982. Just bought it and thoroughly like it. It is a psychological thriller, which at some level is disturbing, but I found it interesting. The character Martin (Sting) approaches Tom Bates (D. Elliot)and tries to suggest they knew each other in an attempt to get closer to him and extract something, perhaps money. Mr. Bates abandons Martin in town, but later that evening Martin shows up as he has lifted the wallet of Mr. Bates, with his home address, money, credit cards. The money ends up "missing" and Martin portrays himself as the good samaritan to return the wallet. Mr. Bates doesn't trust Martin, but his wife, Norma, takes to the kindly young man who professes to know their sickly daughter, from Art School a few years earlier. Martin, the drifter, or perhaps an escapee from a mental institution, is seen as a devil but ultimately saves the family from its hidden secrets and releases all of them. Sting was great in the role of Martin, in my opinion, sometimes angel and sometimes demented. I looked up the meaning of Treacle in the dictionary - it is a remedy. So Martin ends up saving the family, he is the remedy to their nightmares. Interesting.
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