Sweeny Todd, He Said

Blood, blood and more blood. What would you expect from the portrayal of The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, particularly when you team up Johnny Depp and Tim Burton?

Burton's style is all over this film version of the Broadway Play of the same name. In one scene, Todd, Johnny Depp, is holding his famed straight-edge razors, one in each hand and singing about his mission for them, it was as if Edward Scissorhands had returned once again.

I've not seen the stage production of this play, but I assure you that Burton has pulled off a rare great transformation of a musical to film. He starts with the masterful casting of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Depp, as Sweeny Todd, made up in overly sinister fashion and Bonham Carter, as the pie making Mrs. Lovett are matched in such a way as to leave no doubt who are the ones we should be worried about.

As our story opens, Todd is returning to London, after a stretch in prison, to re-open his barber shop on Fleet Street. His intention is not reclaimed financial success, but revenge. He has changed his name and appearance so as not to be recognized as the former barber Benjamin Barker. Barker had his wife and daughter stolen from him by the evil and powerful Judge Turpin, Alan Rickman. He learns, from Mrs. Lovett that his wife had committed suicide rather than face life with Turpin and that his daughter is Turpin's ward. For Todd, it's simple. He will lure Turpin to his shop by establishing himself as the premier barber on the street, and having done so, kill him with one quick sheer stroke of his razor.

Easy enough, but events intervene and because of one nasty but necessary killing, Todd and Lovett end up in the meat pie business out of greed, Lovett and necessity, Todd. They needed a way to dispose of the bodies. So gross are the killing scenes, you have to laugh. The tragic ending makes you take note that in our best hopes for the world all bad things will happen to those who are bad and that with the safe landing of Todd's, aka Barker's daughter, there is always hope.

Johnny Depp is one of our finest American Actors. How I would love to see him on stage. This and his masterful portrayal of Jack Sparrow,in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, give me that almost over the top without going to far capability that an actor needs to reach the back row, but not look like a ham to those in the first row. Burton's pairing Depp with Bonham Carter is brilliant and they play off each other like facing mirrors.

Burton needs no further accolades to establish himself as a great director, and this will do nothing to diminish him. Now, if he can only find another character, who needs sharp things in both hands and get Johnny to play him.