Bane 3

Formulaic, choked with stereotypes and heavily indebted to its predecessors, film noir Bane 3 is a decadent waste of celluloid. Except it’s not filmed and not a penny was spent on props or costumes never mind CGI and stunts. Rather, it’s an astounding one-man crime parody told through the body, exhaustive haul of accents and cinema-sodden imagination of Joe Bone.

Performed in sequence on consecutive nights, Bone brings a second sequel to his 2009 Fringe sensation Bane and debuts the trilogy in full this year. However, Bane 3 requires no more context than an idling knowledge of action flick narrative. The sexily amoral ex-gangster Bruce Bane is shot in under a minute and must stagger across New York pursued by idiosyncratic heavies. His risible attempt to settle down in the stock idyll of Sunnyview meets with a gleefully gruesome end. 

Hammy jokes that would draw groans in the cinema are met with applause when Bone’s empty hand animates them. The scene-stealing French maitre d’ (played by Bone) is greeted, “Je m’appelle Bane”, (by Bone’s Bane) before being blasted with a shotgun (Bone’s arm). 

But Bane’s slickest bullseye is to reveal just how entrenched cinematic tics are into our minds; a single gesture can recall a flashback sequence, a switched point of view or jump in time. Bone spends much of the hour demonstrating this moxie at mimed filmic method to the discount of his wonderful referential one-liners. Still, the biggest joke in Bane is on Hollywood: they’ve drastically underrated people's imaginations and could be saving millions with a low-fi auteur like Bone.