I usually enjoy Mark Kermode on his Youtube channel and find him entertaining, and effortless to listen to. I found his book equally entertaining, and finished it only a few days. It's a fantastic mix of philosophy and debate about what a movie critic is, along with entertaining stories of his own experiences and history about film. Great stuff! ( )

Not bad and full of the usual Kermodian rants and anecdotes but 25% of the book is index! ( )

Mark Kermode is pretty much everything I like about a critic. He’s smart, passionate and usually entertaining and passes the ultimate test of a critic; even if I disagree he’s well worth listening to. As it happens we agree on a lot (not The Exorcist, but we have common ground in an unreasonable shared love of Silent Running and reasoning hatred of Bay’s Transformers films), so I’m not inclined to go all Uwe Boll on him. Not for this book anyway.

Hatchet Job is an evaluation of movie critics and their role down the years. It’s a fierce, impassioned defence of criticism aspiring to be art or at least result in better art being made by others. But to tis credit this is a critical defence. Kermode’s great strength is retaining the perspective of fan and critic, understanding both and being prepared to answer all charges. You can see from the first chapter that even when he becomes a professional critic he makes fanboy errors, mistaking disagreements in view for errors of judgement. This leads to my one crucial disagreement with him; the issue of being wrong about films. Kermode’s view implies there are such things as objectively great films (the anecdote about Bonnie and Clyde or his account of re-evaluating AI). I’d argue that a well-reasoned viewpoint that’s at least engaged with a piece of art can’t be wrong. If there are factual errors or misunderstandings, yes there can be error but if a film’s failed to engage? If the critic has a reason why something’s failed to engage them? Surely then they’re simply providing a more well-rounded view.

Overall though, as entertaining and well-reasoned as his usual reviews. ( )

For anyone not familiar with Mark Kermode’s work, he is the Chief Film Critic for The Observer newspaper, he presents The Culture Show on BBC2, and he is part of ‘Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review’ programme on BBC Radio 5 live. In this book, he talks about his role as film critic, and more specifically, the role of a film critic in today’s world, where the internet allows pretty much everyone to be a critic about pretty much anything. And you don’t need to have any specialist knowledge or qualifications to be an internet critic. (I’m well aware that as a blogger, I’m one of these people that he talks about – I’m not particularly qualified to write about books or movies or theatre, but I do anyway, although I don’t claim to offer anything other than my own opinion, for whatever that’s worth.) So with the growth of blogging, tweeting etc., the role of progressional film critic has come under some threat.

Kermode eloquently makes the case for the necessity of professional film critics in such a world – he certainly convinced me, although to be fair, I agreed with his point of view in the first place. He also discusses how advertisement posters for films have now started using quotes from Twitter users as endorsements, and points out the obvious problems with this. For all this though, Kermode does seem to want to embrace the internet and the rise of online bloggers, is also quick to point out the advantages of it – both to himself and to others.

The book is very well written and engaging, and often very amusing too. Each chapter is about a specific point relating to the main theme, but Kermode often goes off at tangents, and uses lots of anecdotes to illustrate what he’s saying – at the end of the chapter, everything ties up nicely.

Overall, if you like Mark Kermode’s film reviews, you will like this book. If you don’t know anything about Mark Kermode or his film reviews, there’s a strong chance you will like this book. I don’t think you even need to be particularly cineliterate to enjoy it – my basic knowledge of any film extends as far as whether or not I enjoyed it. I started reading the book on a long flight, and usually when I’m flying, I end up listening to music, watching a film, or trying to sleep. However, I found myself not wanting to do any of those things, and instead just wanting to keep reading. So for me, this was definitely a winner, and I would recommend it. ( )