I actually held off for a few days before typing up my thoughts on Blackbird as I wasn’t sure what I watched and in many ways, why I watched it in the first place. Blackbird, produced, written, directed and starring Michael Flatley  who is of course most famous for Riverdance’ plays Victor Blackley an ex spy/secret agent who has enough of secret agent stuff and heads off to the Caribbean to run a high end hotel.  However the secret agent stuff catches up with him as one of the guests in the hotel is Blake Mollenaux (played by Eric Roberts) and is there to broker a deal for a formula that can be used a some sort of bio weapon. 

I first heard of this film when the guys over the the Golan Globus Theatre podcast reached out to me to ask if I had heard of the film (I hadn’t) as they were planning on doing an episode about the film. (You can hear that episode here  Curiosity got the better of me and i tracked the film out to see what it was all about.

Pretty early on in the film I knew I was watching something that clearly wanted to be a Bond movie (but wasn’t) and Michael Flatley clearly wanted to dip his talented toes into the world of the spy genre, and whether you like the finished result or not. Michael has now in fact starred in a spy movie. So well done Michael for that at least.. The film was such an odd viewing experience. It does have some pretty well directed shots and the locations do look pretty great and does make me want to head off to the Caribbean for a much needed holiday, some of the supporting cast were great and I’m always happy when Ian Beattie is onscreen and he’s really good as Nick who works with Victor. Id much rather Ian was in the title role than Michael as Ian has been in some of my favourite things over the years (Oliver Stone’s Alexander, and Game of Thrones for example) and would have done a far grittier performance than the one Michael gave (sorry Michael)

Blackbird was one of those viewing experiences that I’m sure we have all had, you know the one. Where you are watching a film and early on know that its not a great film and that you should really hit the off switch and try something else, but you end up watching the full film anyway and then thinking. You know what? I didn’t like it, but I’m glad I watched it. Clearly Blackbird is a passion project for Michael Flatley and that’s fine, I’m sure everyone has something they would class as a ‘passion project’ . Blackbird was such an odd film and whilst it did have its fun silliness and curiosity about it for me. I’m not sure its a film Id recommend unless someone says to me ‘I want to watch something odd, that’ll make my head tilt like a confused puppy’ in which case I might answer with ‘watch Blackbird’  Also if you are a fan of Eric Roberts then he’s definitely full on Eric Roberts in this film too and that’s always fun to watch.  It also has one of (if not the) most ridiculous fight scenes that youll see (or actually not see) on screen where the hero of the film is taken off camera by a couple of thugs, and a few seconds later he returns onscreen, blood soaked having just won a fight with the thugs but we dont ever get to see any of the fight at all. totally bonkers!  So, here you go. check out the trailer for Blackbird.