I was particularly interested in seeing this film, since it was written by someone who a friend of mine knows; written whilst he was working in an off-licence in my old home town. I have been following its progress for some 5 years now, since I heard that he'd sent the script off to Tim Roth and that Tim Roth had rung him back late one night, much to his surprise. The script was then passed on to Samual L Jackson who produced and starred in it. So I went to see it last night... The film was quite frankly appalling. Maybe the script was better that the film made out, maybe not; it was hard to tell in amongst the awful "oh here we go again, doesn't work outside Asia" Hong-Kong slow-motion(tm) film direction. The acting talent available should have made this a much better film, if you exclude the female hitman, which I guess points to the fact that the film making and the script were more than likely to blame. Gratuitous bad language is funny in the hands of intelligence. Think Derek and Clive when Peter Cook uses more swear-words per minute on one comedy record than anyone else before or since. Yet they are funny, since they are used in an intelligent, clever, witty fashion. The use of bad language here was just simply there because the writer thought that using the 'Fredrick' and 'Celery' words alone was somehow 'funny'. It's not. You become insensed to it and then annoyed. I actually walked out 10 minutes from the end as the film descended into a downward spiral of crapness as Samual's character gave away his new found drugs to 'the kids'. The film was a pseudo-Tarantino pastiche of every other gangster film you can name. Almost in the same way that the Scream franchise drew on Craven's earlier horror schlock flicks, only not as intelligently done. Unlike Taratino, who at least provided clever and amusing dialog for his first couple of films (including the much underrated From Dusk Til Dawn), this script fails single-handedly to deliver any sort of originality, even going to the extent of using a Tarantino mandatory in the form of Jackson, to give the film some kudos. I cannot recommend this film and have not walked out of a movie for years... which is a shame, since I'd have liked it to have been good, since the humble beginnings of this film are somewhat fairytale. I fear that Stel P's career will dry up very quickly if this is all he has to offer.
A 'B' movie in wolf's clothing. A wolf that has been shot.
A 'B' movie in wolf's clothing. A wolf that has been shot.