Written, starring, and directed by Bob Hoskins, The Raggedy Rawney is a movie so obviously destined for disaster that you can't help but admire it, even if it's not a good movie at all.

Set in a time period we assume is the second World War, a young man named Tom (played by Dexter Flesher) skips out on his unit in the middle of a bombing raid. On his way out of there, he inadvertently stabs his commanding officer during his escape. The emotional trauma that Tom has experienced from his experiences on the battlefield causes him to go a bit mad and he begins strutting around in a red dress. He also slathers on some white pancake makeup and paints a black line around his eyes.

After he dolls himself up, he wanders through the woods and runs into a group of gypsies. They take him in, assuming he is a woman and convinced that he has some psychic abilities, dubbing him a 'rawney.' Darkey (Bob Hoskins), the leader of the gypsy band, is happy to take him in as he's able to exploit his psychic ability to bet on horse races and the like.

Meanwhile, some soldiers are cruising around the countryside looking for new recruits to replace those killed in the war and those who have deserted. As Tom spends more time among the gypsies, he develops a relationship with Jessie, a gypsy girl who knows who he really is. Things get ugly when the commanding officer that Tom stabbed figures out where he's at though, and he's none too happy at all with the way Tom has been acting.

The Raggedy Rawney is an odd one. Just where Hoskins was going with all of this is never really made clear and the film is incredibly disjointed. It's not without its own certain bizarre charm though – Flesher is an interesting looking lead, playing up the androgyny of his character aptly and with some degree of sympathy. The film has a somewhat gritty, dirty look that works in its favor and helps it achieve a sense of realism at least in terms of the look and feel of the time and place that it's all occurring in. But the story flip flops and meanders and can't make up its mind if it's a social commentary, comedy, love story, mystery, war movie, or all or none of the above.

The film, seeing as Hoskins played such a major role in its inception, was probably intended as a fairly personal project but just what part of Hoskins personality we're supposed to become closer with through viewing this disasterpiece is beyond me. It lacks structure and feels almost unfinished at times, because quite honestly, it really ends up going nowhere.

Bob Hoskins has obviously redeemed himself with some terrific performances over the last fifteen years since this turkey tried to fly, but his 1988 directorial debut is best left forgotten by all but the most curious of cinephiles, and even then only those who take pleasure in watching the train wreck happen.

Video:

Viewers have the choice of watching the film in its original widescreen 1.85.1 aspect ratio, enhanced for anamorphic viewing, or in a cropped fullframe presentation. I didn't bother with the fullframe version save for a quick comparison, and the quality looks to be about the same. Daytime scenes look pretty good and seeing this in widescreen does make a big difference, but sadly the picture is a bit soft and particularly murky looking during the darker scenes and the nighttime scenes. Colors look reasonably well defined, reds in particular stand out, but the softness permeates the picture too often for this to be any better than an average quality transfer at best.