Perhaps the canniest piece of writing that William Shakespeare ever produced, or at least one of his most relevant, is when he wrote that “life’s but a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage” – and few people embody this concept more than the two protagonists of The Actors, the fascinating but slightly misguided dark comedy written and directed by the reliable but underpraised Conor McPherson, who tells the story of a pair of hard-working but profoundly untalented stage actors who seemingly find a shortcut to immense wealth but put themselves in many perilous situations to achieve it, their plot taking them right into the heart of Dublin’s criminal underworld, which they soon learn is far more intimidating and either of them would have ever expected. Often very funny but not entirely faithful to the potential that the concept had, The Actor is about as entertaining as it could be given some of the constraints, which makes it slightly more difficult to criticize on an academic level since there is doubtlessly value scattered throughout the film, it just takes some time to fully realize it, by which point the audience may be slightly bored, or lost interest in the story altogether. It hasn’t been upheld as some comedic masterwork, nor is it viewed as a cult classic in any sense, and seemingly remains a remnant of the early 2000s, residing there in relative obscurity, despite being quite entertaining in terms of offering a terrific diversion, but not much else. It is a solid comedy with good moments and a terrific sense of humour, but it is otherwise not particularly notable outside of being marginally entertaining and funny in a way that feels somewhat natural, enough to give us a couple of hours of solid enjoyment as we explore the deranged world of these hilariously petty criminals and their misjudged exploits that form the foundation for a truly off-kilter but quaint dark comedy.

The Actors is surprisingly based on an idea by the tremendous Neil Jordan, who conceived of the story but was otherwise not directly involved in the production. While he may not be the most well-established director, McPherson is not a bad filmmaker, but also not one who seemed to have the capacity to take this material and transform it into something valuable, which makes a big difference if we look at this film from a distance. Jordan has made a career from challenging films, and even his broadest comedies have some depth – we have to wonder whether or not he would have been a more appropriate person to helm this film, since it seems like McPherson and his collaborators were slightly out of their depth, especially in establishing a solid tone, which we find is one of the biggest obstacles that this film had to face, and it doesn’t entirely succeed. It is caught right between a broad slapstick comedy and a more darkly humorous satire, and while these are not at all mutually exclusive concepts, they do require consistency to be fully realized, and it seems like there was not a lot of effort put into creating an atmosphere in which both could exist in tandem. Instead, we find ourselves oscillating between the style of humour with such rapidity, that it seems like whiplash is inevitable, which is not all that effective and creates a muddled tone and an atmosphere that feels like it is approaching greatness, but misses the mark by quite a substantial margin. This isn’t to say this story is without merit – it is undeniably very funny, but it goes about examining certain themes without much thought behind them, which only makes the resolution all the more difficult, since there were far more loose ends to tie up right at the end as a result of the labyrinthine plot that didn’t need to take such a convoluted approach to what is a very funny premise that could have easily justified being far more simple, and in the process managed to be as effective as it would have been with a more consistent hand at the helm.

When it came to casting the film, it seemed obvious to go for two actors who were wildly different in persona and temperament, but also could work together and forge a genuine chemistry. Michael Caine is certainly not a stranger to films in which he is an active part of a game of cat-and-mouse, or where he is a conman using his debonair skills to take advantage of unsuspecting victims, with his work in both adaptations of Sleuth and the well-received Dirty Rotten Scoundrels being the embodiment of his skill to play these roles respectively. His performance in The Actors is nothing more than solid, perhaps bordering on just above average in comparison to what we know he is capable of doing – it is one of his more dastardly performances as a lead since most of his villainous roles have been supporting parts, but it still doesn’t feel like it has the same madcap energy of some of his other work where he abandoned the more moral aspects and instead embraces the darker side of his character. Dylan Moran is the other half of the central duo, and while he was slightly untested as an actor in a film of this scope, he was at the peak of his popularity with a steadily growing comedy career and the cultural sensation that was Black Books, which made his casting very smart, especially across from a seasoned veteran like Caine. The film is very obtuse with its insistence that it is built on their chemistry, without actually putting any work into ensuring that there was a connection formed between them. They are both good and deliver decent performances, but they lack the spark that was needed to both convey the sense of friendship between the two, as well as the third-act betrayal, neither of which is particularly effective or impactful considering how these are clearly-defined characters in isolation, let alone as a pair. Michael Gambon, Lena Headey and Miranda Richardson are all very good in supporting roles, Gambon, in particular, playing against type and delivering an oddly sympathetic but no less hilarious performance as the retired gangster whose tendency to reveal secrets catalyzes this story, turning in perhaps the only genuinely great performance in a film that squanders an otherwise very talented cast.

However, as good as these performances are, they point to a fundamental problem within this film, which is nothing that we can blame the actors for, but rather the script: The Actor is a film about despicable people getting away with the most heinous crimes. It isn’t even a concern that they don’t face any real consequences, but rather that it stretches the boundaries of plausibility with slightly too much liberty, which creates a very uncomfortable scenario. The belief that every villain in a story has to end up on the downswing is very puritanical and not at all compulsory, but if a film is going to centre on protagonists that are more ambigious in their morality, it should at least have the willingness to make their resolution more interesting than just having them end at roughly the same place as where they started. This is an issue with the character development – neither of the characters played by Caine or Moran learns their lesson or change in any way by the end, which makes for an unsatisfying conclusion since it shows a complete lack of growth and makes the journey towards the conclusion almost feel wasteful, since we are given these two interesting individuals who serve as the antiheroes of this story, only to have them remain stagnant. The story doesn’t serve them particularly well either, and despite the actors’ best efforts, it feels flat and uninspiring, just a quick way to end the film without being too controversial or needing to do much work in terms of developing the story beyond the most obvious ending, which may be charming and give them all something of a satisfying conclusion, but which feels too convenient to have any real artistic merit. Everything works out slightly too well for these characters, which removes all of the tension that we were promised in the expositionary scenes, and just falls apart in ways that are not entirely awful, but rather severely disappointing

There isn’t much to say about The Actors other than acknowledging that it has its moments of very charming comedy, as well as a lot of potential, which is undeniable regardless of whether or not it feels entirely predictable or lives up to its ambitious ideas. The problem is that this film struggles to do anything particularly unique or compelling outside a few strong jokes which otherwise lose their novelty midway through, and where very little is done to get it back on track, since it rests on the laurels of a one-sentence premise, rather than building on it or doing anything entirely original. The Actors prove that regardless of how good of an idea a film may have, it simply can’t sustain itself on the promise of potential, and that it needs to actively work to develop it or do something that has at least partial value. McPherson plays it too safe, and is singularly disinterested in taking any real risks – the character development is beyond predictable, we can anticipate many of the narrative beats, and in the rare instance that we are taken by surprise (such as a hilarious throwback to Michael Caine in Dressed to Kill, one of the more unexpected moments that shows there was some degree of complexity behind this film), they are merely incidental, essentially being red herrings that don’t serve much narrative purpose. This film feels far too concerned with plumbing for laughs than it is putting in the effort to find them, and we soon discover that there isn’t much value in a film that promotes itself as being subversive, but relies far too heavily on hackneyed tricks to tell its story. The Actors is entertaining as a diversion and has been appropriately labelled as such, but we can only wonder what would have come out of it had it been willing to put in the work and develop its characters and story in a way that didn’t rely on cliches, but rather the very audacious concept from which it was initially constructed, but struggled to realize in any meaningful way.