Bold, acerbic, and spectacularly large, British gangster flick Dom Hemingway starts thunderously, but ends with a drizzle. Director Richard Shepard‘s Dom Hemingway (Ugly Betty, Girls, The Matador), by writers/actors Richard E. Grant (Withnail, Iron Lady) and Demian Bichir (A Better Life) has all the relentless, vigorous wordplay of a Shakespearean comedy. Unfortunately, the film plays like one of the Bard’s more famous lines: “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”, despite a talented cast including Jude Law.

After serving twelve long years as a fall guy for his boss, Mr. Fontaine (Demián Bichir) the eponymous Dom Hemingway (played for full effect by Jude Law) is eager for his reward. But it doesn’t take long for Dom’s vices to return, and he soon finds himself in one bad-luck mishap after another.

Hemingway is a lion of a character, swallowing the screen with his blistering words and larger-than-life bravado. Law rises to the challenge, and it’s clear that he relishes every scene and every line. But while cocksure Dom seems capable of carrying the whole film on his shoulders, his charisma is ultimately the film’s crutch, used to distract us from the absence of an actual plot. Instead, we’re given hijinks loosely tied under the pretense of a character study, but it’s neither fitting nor satisfying.

More than anything, Dom Hemingway screams for a slick heist story worthy of the character’s potential. In the hands of Tarantino or Guy Ritchie, Hemingway would soar. But Shepard grounds him at every turn, leaving us with a great character in an average movie.

Nimy Leshinski

@foxsearchlight, @DomHemingway, @judehlaw