Nick Hamm's Killing Bono, penned by four separate screenwriters, is the story of what would charitably be called a wackadoo. The film in fact begins with said wackadoo going over the milestones of a career that is not his but rather that of the titular humanitarian-cum-rockstar, whom he promptly attempts to assassinate. Such actions are those of a particularly heinous lunatic, but there is something amiss in the way Hamm presents all this from the very beginning. There is a sense that Hamm has a certain affinity for this young man, whom we later meet as Neil McCormick (Ben Barnes). This affinity seems to white-out the fact that this central character is very little more than an irredeemable egomaniacal brat.
This, of course, should not be taken as a condemnation of the real McCormick, a longtime rock critic for The Telegraph newspaper whose memoir, "I Was a Bono Doppelganger," serves as source material for Hamm's mild rock & roll melodrama. As the story goes, McCormick and Bono (played here by Martin McCann) were competitive mates in high school, chasing girls around Dublin and worshipping icons like Leonard Cohen. Just as Bono was attempting to get his band, The Hype, going, McCormick started The Undertakers with his brother, Ivan (Robert Sheehan), who was Bono's first pick to play rhythm guitar in The Hype. By the time "Boy," U2's excellent debut, arrived in stores, the McCormick brothers are passing their demo tapes around to anyone who will take a listen, before moving to London to play bigger gigs and get signed.
To Hamm's credit, his film is less about the rote burdens of stardom as it is about the sickness of craving stardom. The McCormick brothers gaze at U2's televised Live Aid performance and can notice nothing but the vast ocean of adorers, ignoring the band's political and musical passion. Around the same time, Neil gushes at a billboard for "The Unforgettable Fire" that boasts "one million copies sold" while his girlfriend (Krysten Ritter, so good in Breaking Bad, so wasted here) offers him that age old wisdom: "So?" There is a story of obsession, the cult of celebrity and pride being told here, but the director is incapable or unwilling to coax it out, to shape and frame it in a way that plumbs the apparent grotesqueries of the central character with any sort of artful eye.Neil, as he is written, is wildly manic, morally corroded and genuinely disturbing, but Hamm is far more interested in building up the mild quarrels that Ivan and Neil indulge in at any given time. A good amount of these familial tiffs are brought on by Neil's refusal to receive a helping hand from Bono, who is not only rebuked when offering the promise of a recording contract for The Undertakers but also runs afoul of Neil's ego when he offers him an opening slot on an upcoming tour. The tone of the piece, which marries something like The Fabulous Stains with a Guy Ritchie gangster flick, is completely wrongheaded. The fraternal feuds reflect the overall timid, borderline family-friendly vibe, which strangely consumes even a scene of Neil staring at a U2 poster while some drunk groupie humps him to infinity.
If there is a note of legitimate melancholy attached to the film, it is that Killing Bono features one of the last screen performances of the inimitable Pete Postlethewaite, who plays the McCormick brothers' openly gay London landlord. Even in such a minor role, Postlethewaite's seemingly effortless charm and physicality overwhelm everything else in the room, especially in his rollicking party scenes. Sadly, I cannot report that Postlethewaite's work here is worthy of paying attention to the clattering mess that surrounds it, but the evidence that he remained such an energetic performer and consummate professional, even in the face of a sympathetic, almost lovesick ode to an utterly despicable and entitled crybaby, is oddly heartening.
