Killing Bono

Neil McCormick is a boy with a dream; he's a Sixth Former in Dublin, and he's got his sights set on megastardom. Paul Hewson is a friend of his at school, who also has his sights set on megastardom. Hewson, of course, becomes Bono, and front man of the biggest band in the world(tm). McCormick becomes bitter.

Specifically, having once rubbished Hewson's chances of making it, and telling him that his own band will soon be on Top of the Pops, and having prevented his brother joining the band that would go on to be U2, he has to sit back in his garage with the no-hopers in his band while watching U2 produce a hit album. And thus starts McCormick's quest, as he will stop at nothing to make his band as big as U2 - nothing, that is, except accept several very generous offers from Bono to help him along. This, then, is not so much a film about U2, as about one man's futile battle against an oblivious and uncaring music industry, and against his own pride and hubris.

The portrayals are a lot of fun. Ben Barnes, who has previously wasted our time playing Prince Caspian in the Narnia films, turns in a pretty epic comedy turn as McCormick, reminding me a lot of a young Ed Byrne. His brother Ivan is played by Robert Sheehan, previously the irritating gobby one in Misfits, who isn't the least irritating or gobby here, and is a really sweet, trusting puppydog, trusting his brother to steer their music career, while not realising the catastrophic decisions that are being made on his behalf. There's a lot of quality support; Peter Serafinowicz as their clueless management, Peter Pothelswaite in a lovely turn as their landlord in London, and Martin McCann as The Mighty Saint Bono Himself. The portrayal of Bono is actually pretty key to the story; he's very generously portrayed as a lovely, supportive, helpful friend to McCormick, who is quite willing to give him a helping hand, no matter how many times McCormick throws it back in his face; this only serves, of course, to make McCormick's self-destructive pride even more amusing.

So, really, this is a film that ticks all the boxes, it's funny, charming, warm, and never tries to treat the subject matter too seriously. U2 got lucky, and encountered the right combination of factors to propel a pretty good local garage band into the big time. The portrayal of McCormick's band (under various names) is of a pretty decent outfit who change with the times, being variously punk, rock and new romantic as time goes on, and who plausibly *could* have been the bigger band, had the cards been dealt differently. The message, then, is that you can never tell what breaks you're going to get in life, that it isn't fair, and that you should never let pride make you refuse a helping hand. Wise words for us all there, I think.