ELIMINATE ARCHIE COOKSON PUTS BRISTOL ON INTERNATIONAL MOVIE MAP
Bristol based film-maker Rob Holder blasts onto the big screen with a cult-thriller that’s firmly based in the South West. It’s his first outing as a film director and if his debut is anything to go by then we could be seeing a lot more from Bedminster’s resident auteur. John Barker finds out more…
Bristol has played host to several high profile television series like ‘Skins’ and ‘Teachers’, but has never really set the silver screen alight as a film location. This is something that Holder wants to change: “There’s a really great sort of undercurrent of filmmaking talent and enthusiasm in Bristol. If people can just put those bits together and capture that and get out there and shoot stuff with a camera, you could definitely put Bristol on the map. And I hope Archie [Cookson] does.”
Archie Cookson, which premiered at Bristol’s Cinema de Lux a few weeks back, mixes Bristol’s more picturesque sites with the dark underbelly of the city. The movie tells the story of a down and out MI5 Russian translator, Archie Cookson (Paul Rhys), who despite his alcoholism and general disregard for his role, manages to get hold of some highly sensitive audio tapes. Things go from bad to worse for Archie as he loses his job, and then both his employer and a privately contracted assassin (played by the wonderfully adept Paul Ritter) comes after him for the tapes with deadly intent. There is plenty of comedy interspersed within the action, including an excruciatingly funny moment when Archie’s son, played by Freddie Downham, provides his Dad with fake passports and cash to aid his escape. It all culminates in an explosive climax with a classic confrontation between Archie and his pursuers.
Leading man Paul Rhys describes the film as the ‘story of a breakdown of a character in a romantic espionage thriller. He’s lost everything…. he turns himself inside out to find the answer to why he is so unhappy’. Rhys plays the role brilliantly and with such depth that he deserves further opportunity to illustrate his talents on the big screen. His character veers from drunken depressive to romantic hero who becomes resigned to the fact that violence is the only route to resolve his problems.
The film cost a cool $1 million to produce and was shot all over Bristol taking in locations such as the Bristol Dye Works, the Wills Memorial Building and Berkeley Square. The city is an attractive location for actor Paul Rhys, who you may have also seen in another Bristol based TV series ‘Being Human’. Rhys told 247 that he was, “Down here like a shot. It’s the only place I’d come. I fantasise about living here…it’s the Georgian houses, the music and the culture scene.”
The director of the film Rob Holder has lived in Bristol for most of his life and obviously also enjoyed working in the city he loves, “The city permeated me from an early age. There’s an amazing sense of creatively and positivity around Bristol that made really me feel that I could do the film here, where I don’t think I could have done it in any other city.”
Although the film is the director’s first feature length foray he’s already looking ahead to his next project and he’s not straying too far from Bristol. Rob says: “One of the ideas we are floating is a very British heist film. It’s kind of ‘Heat’ meets ‘Sexy Beast’ in a very British kind of way, and we hope to shoot that in Bristol, so it’s a much darker proposition altogether than Archie Cookson.”
Whatever this young director does next it’s sure to be full of wit and invention, and he’s sending a message to the industry – Beware Hollywood the Bristolians are coming!
