I really wanted to like this comedy, and to be honest, there was a lot to like in it.
A terrific cast, with Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis as the lead troublemakers, supported by a host of serious (Tom Wilkinson, Hugh Bonneville, Christopher Lee) and comedic actors (Bill Bailey, Ronnie Corbett).
Based on the true story about the famous murderers, Burke and Hare follows the exploits of these two men as they fall into the highly profitable business of providing cadavers for the medical fraternity in 19th Century Edinburgh, then the centre of medical learning. The one thing they were short of was bodies.
But (and there's usually a 'but' with these reviews), while the film was funny, and sharply acted, what let it down was that it took an already extreme story and insisted on trying to ice the cake: by claiming that William Burke's body was taken from the gallows to Edinburgh Hospital, and now his skeleton hangs in a glass cabinet at Edinburgh University; that Burke was a direct ancestor of Charles Darwin, and that Dr Robert Knox, purveyor of the bodies harvested by Burke and Hare, ended his days performing magic tricks at Wild West shows in America.
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