Grand Theft Parsons film review

certificate_12A

GRAND THEFT PARSONS

When rock star Gram Parsons (The Byrds) died of a heroin overdose in 1973, his road manager Phil Kaufman faced a tricky proposition. Two years earlier he had made a pact with his star friend that if either of them died young, the other would take his body and bury it in the Joshua Tree desert. Along the way Kaufman faced numerous problems: transportation, the delicate process of extracting the corpse from a mortuary, Parsons' father (who himself intended to bury his son in the family grave), and Parsons' ex-girlfriend, determined to prove she should benefit from the musician's will.

Inspired by Phil Kaufman's real-life tale of this offbeat adventure, director David Caffrey and screenwriter Jeremy Drysdale have crafted a wonderfully funny film that has some deft emotional resonances (namely to do with loyalty) and a sprinkling of laugh-out-loud moments that will pop into your head for days after it has finished.
Johnny Knoxville is the unlikely star of the show. Most famous until now as one of MTV's Jackass stars, Knoxville announces himself as a highly capable actor with great screen presence. He gives Kaufman a huge air of authenticity, and as he struggles with the increasingly ludicrous situations he finds himself in, he never slips into playing it for laughs. After his own girlfriend and Parsons' ex (Marley Shelton and Christina Applegate) have a feud on his doorstep, he sidesteps them an enlists the help of a far too chilled out hippy with a hearse, only referred to by Kaufman as, appropriately enough, Hippy (a hilarious performance by Michael Shannon).

Trundling along in Hippy's bright yellow hearse, Kaufman has to falsify and bribe his way into removing his pal's body from the airport morgue, a sequence which includes one of the most unexpected and uproarious moments of recent comedies. Once they are off on their way however they have to avoid the police, warring girlfriends, and Parsons' grieving Dad (Robert Forster).

Fans of Gram Parsons may be disappointed to learn that the star only features briefly on his deathbed, and they may rightly quibble about the lack of Parsons' music on the soundtrack. But this is definitely not biopic stuff, instead coming across as a warm and funny road movie. It's a hugely uplifting affair that leaves the audience with a broad smile and hopefully will benefit from the positive word-of-mouth it deserves.