By LOU LUMENICK
Rating: 
Posted: 12:37 am
August 1, 2008
BERNIE (Gregg Sulkin), the hero of the Britcom "Sixty Six," is a preteen Job whose lengthy list of miseries - including the failure of his hopelessly square dad's greengrocer business - is topped by his bar mitzvah being scheduled against the final of the 1966 World Cup at Wembley.
Bernie's fantasies of a Big Fat British Bar Mitzvah to rival his older brother's literally go up in smoke even as he places a voodoo curse on his country's World Cup team and dutifully studies with a blind rabbi.
On the plus side is a good cast, including Eddie Marsan and Helena Bonham Carter as Bernie's hapless parents and Stephen Rea as a sympathetic doctor.
The direction of this autobiographical tale by Paul Weiland (whose lengthy rap sheet runs all the way from "Leonard Part 6" to "Made of Honor") is less than subtle. Combine that with the most eyeball-gougingly ugly collection of costumes and décor from the era that I've ever seen, and it's not surprising that "Sixty Six" is getting a token US release a couple of years after it bowed across the pond.
Running time: 93 minutes. Rated PG-13 (profanity, brief nudity and sexuality). At the Village East and the Second Avenue and 64th Street
