Image from collider.com.
Back in the day, the lads were at the top of their game and thought they could do it all. Led by Gary King (Simon Pegg), they attempt to hit twelve pubs in their town in one night. They don’t make it. Now, many years later, Gary brings them all together so they can finish what they started. Among them are Steven (Paddy Considine), Oliver (Martin Freeman), Peter (Eddie Marsan), and Andy (Nick Frost), Gary’s former closest chum. The years have been kind to them, but not to Gary, who’s an addict of all sorts and stuck in the past – complete with the car and audio tapes he owned in 1989. Clearly, someone needs closure.
And so it begins. The men move from pub to pub as they remember their last effort. The bartenders don’t seem to recognize them, which makes sense to everyone except Gary, who always felt he was a bit of a celebrity in the town. Each pub seems to symbolize a moment from their earlier journey, so in a sense it’s a metaphorical journey as well as a physical one, somewhat like that of Burt Lancaster in The Swimmer.
Old quarrels are reignited, and the lads run into people from their past. But something seems a bit, well, off about them. A former flame (Rosamund Pike), Peter’s sister, turns up as well. Former teachers and other barflies nod and murmur greetings, but little more. Something’s up in this town, but is it more important than getting to Pub #12, the titular World’s End? Not according to Gary.
The movie gives us another great reason to love Simon Pegg. Here, he’s a degenerate lowlife who never grew up, a man with many demons and no intention of exorcising a single one. It’s not Pegg’s normal role, and yet he aces it. Sure, this is an Edgar Wright comedy, thus putting Pegg in his wheelhouse, but the character is so un-Pegg-like that’s a wonder to behold. Just as Gary was the driving force in high school, so is Pegg the driving force – literally, in some scenes, as he drives his friends into town – of the film.
There are many conflicts. Gary, although he doesn’t really show it, battles himself. He firmly believes that it’s important for his own psyche to complete this crawl, that the closure may ease his mind, maybe make things better. Then there’s a conflict between Gary and Steven, who each had a thing for Peter’s sister. And of course there’s a conflict between Gary and Andy, who haven’t spoken in years. Each of these conflicts is irrefutably believable, and the cohesion of the cast really seals the deal.
And then, a little more than midway through the movie, something happens that dramatically changes the whole point of the pub crawl. Well, for everyone except Gary, anyway. You may have already read about the MacGuffin somewhere else, but I’m not going to spoil it here, because it’s really funny when it makes its appearance. Even with this new arrival, the tone of the movie doesn’t change dramatically – it’s still a comedy with plenty of action. Blistering, electric action, as a matter of fact. The fight scenes depart from normal action movies by being actually comprehensible – one can discern who is fighting whom or what.
For me, there were plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, many of them related to Gary’s blissful lack of self awareness. Pegg’s comic timing remains impeccable, and his chemistry with Frost remains deliciously strong and vibrant. Frost and Pegg make this film a raucous, uproarious, devilish chucklefest, and you can quote me on that.
The World’s End is an electric comedy, replete with stinging barbs that singe but do not cause permanent injury. It’s truly a one of a kind movie of a journey into weird, illogical, and confounding waters.
The World’s End: ***1/2
