www.list.co.uk/film COMEDY THE MOTHER OF INVENTION (12) 98min (Kaleidoscope) ●●●●●
Largo Winch: Deadly Revenge
DVD Reviews Film
Despite an amusing cameo by Mark Boone Jr as protagonist Vincent’s dishevelled dad and a couple of wryly amusing moments from Kevin Corrigan playing Vincent’s relatively wise, melancholic buddy, this is a mockumentary better on the mocking than the invention. Following the life of
25-year-old Vincent Dooley (Andre Bowser) as he prepares to enter the annual ‘Eddy’ competition for youthful innovation, the film’s narrative thrust comes from Vincent’s innovatory incompetence. With a film crew following him around, Vincent describes the various inventions he has brought into the world. One is a talking pillow that will ask for affection; another is a helmet with a knife in it that women can wear to ward off potential rapists. Writer/director Joseph M. Petrick wants us to feel something for the poor man we’ve mocked for most of the film’s running time. Ultimately it’s difficult to care. Minimal extras. (Tony McKibbin)
ACTION/THRILLER LARGO WINCH: DEADLY REVENGE (15) 104min (Optimum) ●●●●●
Made two years ago and released straight to DVD in the UK, this adaptation of the bestselling comic book series by Belgian writer Jean Van Hamme was nevertheless successful enough elsewhere to green light forthcoming sequel The Burma Conspiracy with Sharon Stone. This film
introduces the titular hero (played by stand- up comedian Tom Sisley), the orphan son of the founder of a powerful business empire who becomes heir to a fortune when his father is murdered and is subsequently embroiled in an aggressive takeover bid by company woman Kristen Scott Thomas and masterminded by an evil Russian businessman (Karel Roden). Inspired by Robert
Ludlum’s Bourne books and conceived as a Bond-style franchise, Largo Winch plays like a cross between the two. The action’s non-stop, the plot’s full of twists and the locations, from Hong Kong to Bosnia, look lovely. But it’s all a bit sub-Bourne/Bond. Minimal extras. (Miles Fielder)
CRIME/THRILLER SUS (15) 96min (4Digi) ●●●●●
On the eve of Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 landslide election victory a black man (Clint Dyer) is picked up off the streets of Brixton under the notorious suspicion law and interrogated by two white police officers (Ralph Brown and Rafe Spall). Ostensibly questioning the bewildered Delroy about a local murder, detectives Karn and Wilby actually indulge themselves in a spot of racial abuse,
emboldened by the expectation of a Tory return to power and an end to wishy-washy civil liberties.
Directed by first-timer Robert Heath from a script by Barrie The Long Good Friday Keeffe, it’s grim, gritty, clever, political and reminiscent of the work of the late greats Alan Clarke and Harold Pinter. It’s a tad stagey, but Keeffe’s sharp script, Heath’s unshowy direction and top-notch performances, particularly from Brown (who looks like Sean Connery in the not dissimilar film The Offence), keep things compelling. And with the Tories back in No 10, it is, unfortunately and no doubt not coincidentally, very timely. (Miles Fielder)
DRAMA DIARY OF A BAD LAD (18) 90min ●●●●● (Safecracker Pictures)
Before you delve into this seedy world of drugs, pornography and prostitution, take heed that it’s not real. Clearly inspired by 1992 faux- documentary Man Bites Dog (also about a fake film crew filming gangsters), director Michael Booth and writer/star Jonathan Williams’ no-budget mockumentary feels so realistic you wouldn’t know the difference if you switched on midway through.
Williams plays the interestingly-named Barry Lick, a suspended college film lecturer who decides to make a movie about Blackburn’s crime scene. Persuading local gangster Tommy Morghen (Joe O’Byrne, excellent) to let him film the various dodgy goings on, it’s not long before Lick is way out of his depth. Interestingly amoral, intense and unnerving, Diary of a Bad Lad may ultimately be a victim of its budget but is still worth seeking out. Limited extras. (Stephen Carty)
SCI FI/THRILLER THE 7TH DIMENSION (15) 90min (Kaleidoscope) ●●●●●
‘The whole universe in one room,’ a character pronounces in Brad Watson’s low budget sci-fi. Clearly envisaged as the kind of cerebral sci-fi thriller that makes up for its lack of economic clout with ingenuity of thought (à la Dark Star, Moon and Primer among others),
The 7th Dimension lacks invention. It feels like the screenplay has been over-doctored with back stories, domestic crises and cabin fever irritations all playing bridesmaid to a story of computer hackers determined to break the Vatican’s code and predict the future. The humourless cast,
including Kelly Adams and Jonathan Rhodes, do their best with screeds of plot exposition and emotionally wrought moments that seem unjustified or over-
reactive in relation to the information we’ve been given. When one character says she has had enough waiting around while her beau tries to crack the code they seem to be in entirely different genres: he is in science fiction; she happens to be in an episode of a soap opera. Confused? You will be. Minimal extras. (Tony McKibbin)
NOIR/DRAMA THE PERFECT SLEEP (15) 101min (Icon) ●●●●● Had the makers of this
movie concentrated more on the main product and less on an amusing viral campaign, The Perfect Sleep might not have wound up such a yawnsome affair. Gary Oldman and Bono were both filmed
advising people, in a marginally over-the-top fashion, not to go and see the theatrical release of this pitiable noir effort. So, what’s so bad
about this film, a convoluted drama about families and revenge and loyalty and pain and loners walking off into the sunset? Well, we have a wind farm- obsessed narrator mumbling on in a horribly non-ironic, hard- boiled fashion, tossing off a weighty pearl during every clunkily- directed scene, dialogue to kill for (literally) and a plot so tortured and daft that you want to slice one of the many brandished blades across your own throat. No extras means happily not having to spend another second in this drivel’s company. (Brian Donaldson)
26 Aug–9 Sep 2010 THE LIST 87