Ben Kingsley creates one of the most fully-rounded everyday men you're every likely to meet in this excellent film, full of sudden changes of expression and nervous smiles that could spring from real emotions, It's an amazing performance that even develops as the character careers through a basically crazy adventure. In fact, if we told you that the film was about two cranks who steal three turtles from the zoo and let them loose in the sea, you'd probably turn the other way. But the everyday, incident-filled world that writer Harold Pinter creates around these two rush-of-blood-to-the-heads conservationists will make you cry a little and laugh a lot. Pinter's ear for commonplace dialogue, full of embarrassing pauses, has never been better, especially when used to create the seedy milieu of the boarding house where divorced bookshop assistant Kingsley lodges with people as lonely as himself. There's not a false note in this eccentric slice of everyday life. Warmly recommended.


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