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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Peter Bradshaw

The Spin review – laughter and vinyl in wacky Irish road movie as pals try to save their record store

Easy-going fun … Owen Colgan (Elvis) and Brenock O’Connor (Dermot) in The Spin.
Easy-going fun … Owen Colgan (Elvis) and Brenock O’Connor (Dermot) in The Spin. Photograph: Foxsake Films

Here is a goofy road movie comedy with some cheeky borrowings from Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity; it’s a bit broad, and the ending doesn’t exactly gel, but it’s likable all the same. Dermot (Brenock O’Connor) and Elvis (Owen Colgan) are a couple of guys from Northern Ireland who run a record shop in Omagh, County Tyrone, dealing in old-school vinyl, but they are terrorised by their mean landlord, Sadie (Tara Lynne O’Neill), who owns the lease. They desperately need cash for rent arrears when Dermot discovers online that a farmer in Cork is offering what appear to be hugely valuable records by the blues legend Robert Johnson for just £30 – not realising their real value.

Our two amigos go on a desperate southward journey to trick the poor guy with a paltry 30 quid – or the equivalent in euros – and then sell the precious discs on for what they figure will be a mouthwatering 40 grand. But does that mean they are selling their souls, the way Robert Johnson is supposed to have done at a remote crossroads?

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