A middle-aged man sits on a bench at a scenic overlook at the town of Ikley, Yorkshire, eating his lunch. Suddenly Tim (Harry Melling), an affable young man, approaches and starts a conversation. I assume that this is a standard hookup spot, and the two will go off for sex. Nope, Tim is merely distracting him so his partner, Vic (Tom Brooke), can sneak up, strangle him, and throw him off the cliff.
Turns out that they are radical Catholic assassins, out to kill the atheism advocate Professor Huxley (no doubt a parody of Richard Dawkins), who is promoting the blasphemous book God Awful. But they got the wrong guy: Huxley hasn't even arrived in town yet. So they have to lay low and wait.
Meanwhile the driven police detective Louise is trying to solve the murder. It happens to be the weekend of the Ilkley Literature Festival, when hundreds of wannabe writers and other low-lives show up. She tries to blackmail Martin (Matthew Steer) into cancelling the festival by threatning to tell his wife about the "Italian waiter" he's snogging, but Martin states that he is separated from the wife and engaged to Enrico, so...burn!
Enrico (Elliot Halidu) appears, by the way, but has no lines.
We discover that Vic is the loose cannon of the assassins, attacking people who say "Jesus Christ" as an expletive, while Tim is more passive, laid-back, and rather slow (he plans to go to a kid's story hour during the festival).
For the first half hour, I thought that Vic and Tim were a romantic couple, sleeping in the same bed (I thought), asking "Do you love me?" and answering "I love you very much." But they turn out to be heterosexual. Vic masturbates to a woman online, and Tim meets the Girl of His Dreams: Imelda, a Milton scholar. "Who's Milton?" She accepts a date to go to the children's book reading, and then asks him to the festival party. I wonder what she sees in him.
When Father Enoch (Derek Jacobi) arrives, we learn that they are orphaned brothers. Father Enoch took them in, raised them, and punished them severely for disobedience. He also apparently had sex with them, as suggested by a close-up of his hand on Tim's knee. Now he's the mastermind behind the assassination. Since they failed at the strangulation, he wants them to shoot Professor Huxley during his talk, so everyone in the audience can see God's wrath in action.
Plot complication: Imelda happens to be dating Professor Huxley! She introduces Tim to the Professor and his atheist friends, but they rdicule his minimal knowledge of the Bible, and he runs away, crushed. Imelda apologizes, and notes that she has broken up with Huxley because he's an insufferable jerk.
Still, Tim feels so guilty that he tries to prevent the assassination. Lots more plot complications: Tim tries to save Huxley, Huxley doesn't want to be saved, Huxley plans to kill Tim for the boost it will make to book sales...and....
SPOILER ALERT: At the last moment this turns from a comedy into one of those so-called "black comedy" nightmares.
Beefcake: No. Not even in the instagram galleries of the actors.
Other sights: Lots of exteriors of the quaint village and surrounding countryside.
Gay characters: The minor characters Martin and Enrico. Probably Detective Louise; she notes that she went to Catholic school, where all of the nuns had beautiful bums.
Killing a Major Character: Yes.
My Grade: B before it turned into a horrible black comedy. Now an F-
So what you're saying is, at the point with the Milton scholar, it became paradise lost?
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