The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sweeney Todd’s story begins with Barber Benjamin Barker has his life – and beautiful wife and child – ripped away by the corrupt, power-crazed Judge Turpin. Sentenced to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, Barker has only the memories of his family and the image of Judge Turpin to keep him company as he whiles away time in
jail.

15 years after Turpin tears apart his world, Barker leaves prison and returns to London, his mind consumed with thoughts of revenge. Renaming himself Sweeney Todd, the crazy-haired barber pays a visit to unsuccessful businesswoman/pie baker Mrs Lovett, moving back into the empty apartment over her restaurant where he used to reside with his wife.
Mrs Lovett, the baker of inedible pies, tells Sweeney Todd that after he was sent away his poor wife took poison rather than remain with the judge. Her sad tale serves to help fuel Sweeney Todd’s lust for revenge. With his razors sharpened and ready for duty, Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett begin to cook up ways of getting even with the wicked Judge Turpin. Sweeney Todd’s obsessed with the idea of making Judge Turpin pay for what he did to his wife and for continuing to hold his angelic teenage daughter against her will in his home.
As Sweeney Todd’s rage and despair deepen, he and the loyal Mrs Lovett – who has her eyes on Sweeney Todd as more than just a tenant - concoct a plan which will not only take care of Judge Turpin, but will also have customers lining the streets for Mrs Lovett’s suddenly tasty meat-filled pies (stuffed with a new secret ingredient). The old adage about killing two birds with one stone has never been as appropriate as it is when applied here.

Based on the 1979 musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, from an adaptation by Christopher Bond of the original 1847 British stage play, the Tim Burton sordid slasher musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street strangely combines melody with murder. And though the atmospheric visuals are impressively eerie, the effect is both bizarre and grating.

Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 equally alarming psycho-fantasy Clockwork Orange harmonized the criminally-minded crooning of Singing In The Rain with brutally dispatching murder victims to the afterlife. But it was as ironic commentary and determined disorienting reflection on the peculiar popularity of violence as giddy pathological mass entertainment in its own right, in modern times. Unlike Clockwork Orange, the emotionally flat Sweeney Todd just mindlessly goes for the jugular like your basic slasher fare, with creepy relish.

Johnny Depp as the malevolent, pasty faced serenading barber chopping away at assorted customer throats with a handy lost and found razor, can’t seem to carry a tune quite as impressively as a deadly weapon. And the same goes for Helena Bonham Carter as his infatuated landlady and slovenly chef accomplice at a seedy London dive, whose toxic talent may be more for ptomaine poisoning.

All of which adds up to a gnawing lack of character development as well as professionally trained singing talent, where Sweeney Todd’s razor rage and obsession for revenge feels more robotic than driven by passion and a grieving heart. Primarily because the relationship with his departed victimized wife is mostly mentioned rather than fleshed out, so deciphering the emotional complexity and any related empathy for Sweeney, is subjected to a blunt disconnect.
Sweeney Todd will go into a limited domestic release on December 21, 2007, and open in wide release in the US on January 11, 2008. Sweeney Todd, a co-production between DreamWorks and Warner Bros., marks the 6th collaboration between the Depp and Burton. Production began on February 5th, 2007.
The film stars Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd with Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin, Jayne Wisener as Johanna and Sacha Baran Cohen as Pirelli, as well as Jamie Bower as Anthony, Ed Sanders as Tobias, Timothy Spall as Beadle Bamford, Laura Michelle Kelly as the Beggar Woman, with Christopher Lee, Michael N. Harbour, Peter Bowles, Anthony Head and Ian Burford.

Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald partner with Richard Zanuck and John Logan to produce the screenplay adaptation which is written by Logan (The Aviator,Gladiator). Paramount will distribute for DreamWorks domestically and Warner Bros. internationally.
But what makes this Sweeney Todd standout is the production design. Sweeney Todd’s a gorgeous film with gray as the predominant color, effectively helping to capture the gothic tone of Sondheim’s story. You might not be humming the songs when you leave the theater, but the haunting visuals will definitely stick in your head.

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