Ex-cons Eddie (Sam Rockwell) and Paul (Ben Schwartz) are working in a New York diner and the terms of their parole dictate that they must not leave the country. However, when English lawyer Katherine Rookwood (Phoebe Fox) offers the two men a lucrative deal which involves a trip to London the two men decide to take her up on her offer (especially when she reveals she has dirt on their boss making it easier for Eddie and Sam to make the trip across the pond to England).
Blue Iguana is another in a long line of crime caper films (to all intents and purposes it's a British film but the casting of Rockwell and Schwartz makes me assume that Hajaig also had his eye on the American market as well). The film goes through the motions and isn't particularly bad, but at the same time it's not exactly slick, fast-paced or exciting which is what I would come to expect from a crime caper film. Worse still it isn't really very funny either; it's obvious that Hajaig has tried to deliver this film as a goofy caper, but it rarely gets in its stride and the only moderately funny moments come from Sam Rockwell trying to get to grips with the cockney dialogue and from him trying to imitate a cockney accent (which he does reasonably well to his credit).
Aside from this the film spends most of its time lost in endless chit-chat and repetition all of which results in Blue Iguana at times being boring and tedious - although Hajaig does try and make the film fun with several slow-motion scenes, but for me this all looked a bit lame. The cast are a mixed bag with some enhancing the viewing experience and some hindering it; Sam Rockwell and Phoebe Fox fare the best and they both at least give creditable performances as well as sharing fairly good onscreen chemistry. On the other hand, the likes of Peter Polycarpou and Peter Ferdinando were both a little too cartoonish for my liking and didn't make for particularly terrifying villains - the latter is worse though and at times he overacted to the point of embarrassment.
Blue Iguana is a very average film and Hajaig does just about enough right to make it watchable, but that's both a strength and a weakness. It's not quite dull or boring enough to make it bad, but nowhere near exciting or engaging enough to make it a particularly good film. It sits somewhere in the middle, but with so many great crime caper films already in existence Blue Iguana comes across more like an exercise in futility than anything else.
Blue Iguana is another in a long line of crime caper films (to all intents and purposes it's a British film but the casting of Rockwell and Schwartz makes me assume that Hajaig also had his eye on the American market as well). The film goes through the motions and isn't particularly bad, but at the same time it's not exactly slick, fast-paced or exciting which is what I would come to expect from a crime caper film. Worse still it isn't really very funny either; it's obvious that Hajaig has tried to deliver this film as a goofy caper, but it rarely gets in its stride and the only moderately funny moments come from Sam Rockwell trying to get to grips with the cockney dialogue and from him trying to imitate a cockney accent (which he does reasonably well to his credit).
Aside from this the film spends most of its time lost in endless chit-chat and repetition all of which results in Blue Iguana at times being boring and tedious - although Hajaig does try and make the film fun with several slow-motion scenes, but for me this all looked a bit lame. The cast are a mixed bag with some enhancing the viewing experience and some hindering it; Sam Rockwell and Phoebe Fox fare the best and they both at least give creditable performances as well as sharing fairly good onscreen chemistry. On the other hand, the likes of Peter Polycarpou and Peter Ferdinando were both a little too cartoonish for my liking and didn't make for particularly terrifying villains - the latter is worse though and at times he overacted to the point of embarrassment.
Blue Iguana is a very average film and Hajaig does just about enough right to make it watchable, but that's both a strength and a weakness. It's not quite dull or boring enough to make it bad, but nowhere near exciting or engaging enough to make it a particularly good film. It sits somewhere in the middle, but with so many great crime caper films already in existence Blue Iguana comes across more like an exercise in futility than anything else.