FILM REVIEW: The Interview (15)

Just before 2014 was over, the most controversial film of the year emerged, one which attracted so many security issues and terrorism threats that it has been relegated to an online-only release in the UK.

You can rent The Interview on YouTube, Google+ and via your games console if you’re an Xbox Video customer.

Dave Skylark (James Franco) fronts America’s most popular magazine news show, Skylark Tonight, along with long-suffering producer Aaron Rapoport (Seth Rogan), with the pair making their name exposing groundbreaking news such as Rob Lowe’s hair loss.

Rapoport is keen to bring some credibility back to his career and so pushes Skylark into interviewing Kim Jong Un, the world’s deadliest dictator and, luckily, a big fan of the show. The CIA get word and hijack the interview as an assassination opportunity, enlisting Dave and Aaron to do the deed.

The Interview, though entertaining, only earns two stars. It’s not supposed to be an intricate multi-layered story and it’s not supposed to be generation-spanning, intelligent humour.

It is aimed at boys who like explosions and fart jokes and has never pretended to be anything else, making the international furore over such an obviously harmless parody even more ridiculous.

It is dim-witted celebrities like Skylark who are the real pariahs of the story, but you’d have to have an open mind to understand that.

Ashley Whittaker 2/5 stars.