Beware: don’t do anything to annoy the Australian government. You too may have to record an apology video as toe-curling and excruciating as this pair

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard have taught us all a valuable lesson – declare everything when you enter Australia. Failure to notify the authorities that you’re bringing dogs into the country means there’s a good chance the government will kidnap your family and force you to record a grovelling apology while you watch a live-streamed video of them crying and begging for their lives.

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I’ve seen the Depp and Heard apology video five times now, and that can be the only possible explanation. There is no universe, theoretical or otherwise, in which Depp and Heard are saying any of this stuff willingly. Something, clearly, must have happened to them.

Either the Australians have their families, or they’re holding their dogs by the tails over an industrial meat grinder, or this video came after a systematic psychological CIA-style breakdown that involved sleep deprivation and several consecutive hours of being loudly bombarded by a loop of the song Don’t It Make You Feel Good by Stefan Dennis.

Their unwillingness shows. The pair of them come off like a reboot of Hale and Pace’s The Management characters, grinding out every word with a mixture of reluctance and aggression.

Heard has been left with the bulk of the gruntwork here. She’s the one who has to explain the importance of the Australian ecosystem and the necessity of its biosecurity legislation, while Depp sits back and either grunts in agreement or offers tepid platitudes about the national character.

Crucially, Heard is also the one who apologises. And, just as crucially, she does it alone. “I am truly sorry,” she says, while her companion mutely sits beside her. At no point during this entire video does he offer even a glimmer of contrition. Although this might be down to the fact that it was Heard who bore the brunt of the blame, you suspect it may also be a fruitless exercise in brand management on the part of Depp. Johnny Depp is the much bigger name here. He’s a rebel, a pirate. Imagine Captain Jack Sparrow apologising to the Australian government’s department of agriculture and water resources. Imagine Whitey Bulger. Imagine Willy Wonka, for crying out loud. It’s unthinkable. This, you can only assume, is why he chose to throw his wife under the bus instead.

But this tactic doesn’t stop him from looking silly. They both look silly. Remember that video of Kanye West and Mike Myers during the Hurricane Katrina telethon, when West veered off-piste and embarked on an emotional stream of consciousness about how George Bush didn’t care about black people, and Myers just stood there blinking with horror, with his pre-written interjections sounding hopelessly awkward and impotent in comparison?

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This is exactly like that, except here both Depp and Heard are Mike Myers. They’re both the punchline to a joke nobody can hear. The whole thing is legitimately excruciating from start to finish.

This video is their real punishment. Every molecule of star quality has been violently yanked away from Depp and Heard here. They’re sullen and slumped. They’re badly lit and shot from an unflattering angle. Their delivery is ugly and monotone. In effect, the Australian government has done to the celebrity pair what it has already done to its cigarette packaging. It’s taken something seductive and dangerous, and made it look as awful as humanly possible. It’s going to be hard to bounce back from this one.

