Stealing Chaplin

Taking the notorious incident in 1978 when Charlie Chaplin’s body was dug up from his Swiss resting place and held for ransom, Stealing Chaplin moves the body, grave and story to Las Vegas.

Here two hard up British brothers Cal (Simon Philips) and Terry (Doug Philips) (who are also the writers) owe $30,000 to the local underworld. The debt shifts around as the gangs clean their own mess up but they don’t lose sight of the money.

Some failed and fairly dim attempts to make money leaves them with what they see as the option of stealing Chaplin’s body and putting it up for ransom. The idea is that the worldwide publicity surrounding the desecration of very wealthy and loved, if long deceased, celebrity will force the family to pay up. They do get the publicity they yearn for and a whole lot else.

There was potential here for some glorious bad taste with the whole body-snatching and ransom idea, even though the location totally inaccurate. There’s a ludicrousness about the whole thing that would allow the suspension of belief and just run with it for the laughs. The difficulty is that there aren’t that many laughs in Stealing Chaplin.

A good proportion of the film has the two brothers squabbling over various things while dealing with the villains and chatting up local servers in the diner. It soon becomes tiring though debut actor Bianca Katz playing waitress Helen is not bad at all.
The budget is low but director Paul Tanter makes the best of the unique location that is Las Vegas and the film doesn’t look to bad at all though it is probably a bit too long.

There is a good amount of fizz and eccentricity flowing through it. But the main difficulty for me were the brothers and their exchanges: they quickly grow tiresome as they squabble between themselves. Neither are particularly engaging and Terry’s demeanour in particular was very off-putting.

This looked and sounded a little flabby as if the writers put down the first thing that came into their heads, didn’t review anything and just went ahead and filmed, hoping that what they perceived as comic conversation would travel beyond their bubble of interest. Which is fine but strangers (the audience) looking in, may not be so taken or absorbed.

Stealing Chaplin will be available in digital platforms and DVD from 6 December 2021.