Fisherman’s Friends: One and All – mostly pointless sequel elevated by its lead performance

It’s not uncommon to see a great performance that elevates the film around it, but you’d be hard-pressed to see another film this year in which the lead actor is as singularly better than the material as James Purefoy is in Fisherman’s Friends sequel One And All. He’s the undisputed highlight of this otherwise flimsy follow-up, granting it a depth and impact that the script and other performances fall miles short of, genuinely moving at times, and very sorely missed whenever he’s not on screen.

Picking up pretty much where the original left off, One And All finds the eponymous Fisherman’s Friends band enjoying a successful tour, singing their traditional shanties across the UK, though leader Jim (Purefoy) is still in mourning for his recently dead dad Jago (David Hayman). This opening salvo is definitely One And All at its worst, making for a really rough start as the Friends’ record label try to make them more palatable to the mainstream.

It’s all trite observations about the music industry, stale jokes about how un-feminist all the blokes are, and boring and horrendously acted side stories about characters you can barely remember the names of, let alone care about. When, about half an hour in, the band finally come to blows after Jim drunkenly ruins a major gig, it’s less of an emotional crescendo than it is a relief, as writer-director duo Meg Leonard and Nick Moorcroft scatter the cast and focus more directly in on Purefoy and his grief.

Purefoy, who has always deserved more and better leading roles than the British film industry seems willing to grant him, manages to wrap you up in his performance to the point that you forget just how cliched most of his dialogue is on paper. As cracks appear in Jim’s rough and gruff façade, you can’t help but sympathise with his failing attempts to keep his sadness quiet, and Purefoy alone elevates a particular pair of scenes – one a cliffside singalong, the other a brief but pivotal phone call – to heights the rest of the film can’t hope to approach.

Of course, the predictable path of the plot means we eventually have to reunite the band and spend more time with their irritating management as the Friends attempt to book a gig at Glastonbury, and it’s near-impossible to not meet these moments with a heavy, resigned sigh. It doesn’t help that the business side of things keeps dragging the film to London, which always look drab and underpopulated, the polar opposite of the magnificent Cornish coast which is surely the USP of this film to a good chunk of its audience.

It’s a shame that a performance this strong from Purefoy has to be wrapped up in such an otherwise mediocre package, but he does keep things just about ticking along. I can’t imagine there was a huge clamouring for a Fishermen’s Friends sequel, and the end result is mostly as uninspiring as you’d guess from the premise and kitschy marketing, but there’s still value here as a showcase for one of the UK’s most underrated actors.

Fisherman's Friends: One and All is released in UK cinemas on 19 August.