It's very easy to hate on these low budget and generic sort of productions but I have to say that this movie is absolutely far from the worst genre movie that I have ever seen!

For some odd reason I have been seeing a whole bunch of modern British gangster flicks lately. Guess it's a genre that's hot and popular currently in Britain, so it most likely also wont be the last movie from the genre that I have seen this year. And really, most of the genre movies that I have seen are absolutely terrible! Not just bad but really plain terrible! I therefore also was somewhat pleasantly surprised by this movie. It's never really turning into a great one but it's a perfectly watchable nevertheless.

There are still plenty of bad and annoying aspects about the movie. One of them is that it pretty much throws you right into the 'action'. The movie doesn't ever take its time to set up anything. And not just at the start of the movie but pretty much all throughout. It even makes the movie somewhat confusing in parts and I have to admit that I was having a hard time distinguishing the good guys from the bad, since they all looked and acted alike (basicly every character in this movie is a criminal of some sort) and just couldn't always tell what was happening with its story and what the characters wanted and what their current motivations were exactly.

It's also really all because this movie literally has no real character development in it at all. It's therefore also really hard to ever care for any of the characters in this, even the 'good' ones that you are supposed to be with and root for.

But still, the movie never turned into an unpleasant one to watch. Even though its story felt kind of messy there still were plenty of good and interesting developments in it as well. It's a real fast going movie, so most of the time you don't even notice how poorly its story gets handled. the movie doesn't ever give you enough time to think about anything, or let stuff sink in. In this case, this worked in the movie its advantage.

All of the action that's in the movie is pretty decent as well, which is quite an accomplishment for such a small movie such as this one.

It's also a good and professional looking movie, with some good enough performances in it. James Cosmo is the only true big and recognizable name in this but all of the actors did a pretty good job holding their own, even the young and inexperienced ones.

Definitely not a great movie but there obviously are worse genre movies to watch!

6/10

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This is a bit of an oddly constructed movie, that on the one hand is trying to be like a good old fashioned farce and at the other also still a very dry British costume drama. A combination that never works out successfully for this movie.

And really, nothing wrong with a farce. When done right, it's simply something very entertaining to watch, no matter how crazy and unlikely stuff gets at times. But only when done right though! And no, I really can't say that this movie ever got it right. It has lots of characters talking over each other and it spends some time on showing some of their eccentricities but the problem is that the writing is never truly anything clever or witty. It just wasn't anything amusing or funny to watch and instead annoyed me and somewhat bored me as well.

But I can't really say that the movie gets much better as it progresses and starts to take on a different sort of approach to its story. Once the dry drama kicks in, the movie isn't becoming anything more engaging or interesting to watch. Again, mostly due to its lacking writing, that never provides enough depth or background, to any of the movie its characters. The whole concept of the movie falls sort of flat, as the movie does a poor job at telling you why its main character doesn't want to, or perhaps isn't allowed to be, around the character she is truly in love with and it doesn't explain either why she is instead marrying some random other guy, who she clearly isn't ever into at all. She wants this guy to pursue her but once he does and gets to close, she pushes him away again. I just don't get why women do this. You either want a guy or you don't! Don't mess around with a guy's feelings like that! This all so easily could have been resolved by inserting some sort of conflict into the movie, that would make it clear why she was ready to get married to some other guy. Perhaps due to the pressure of her family, or because of money problems, or anything like that. But no, the movie remains mostly vague about all of the character's motivations. Perhaps you have to be a woman to understand? I don't know but seeing how this movie got written by a woman and is mostly showing and telling stuff from a female perspective, this could be the case for this movie.

It's not like this movie was completely unwatchable for me though. It's really too simplistic and harmless in its setup and execution to ever do anything terribly wrong, or become a completely horrible one with its characters or dialog. It has some good elements to it as well, such as its look, that is fine, despite th movie its, still obvious, low budget.

Still it's not a movie that I would recommend to anyone. Aside from its lacking script and storytelling, it also isn't featuring the best acting in it. Besides, it's somewhat annoying how this movie throws in all sorts of characters that you never really get to know or care for. It only adds to the confusion of things that are already happening in the movie its main story and their personalities don't add anything to either the fun or drama of the movie. The weak dialog certainly doesn't help much either.

It's obviously not the worst thing out there but there still is no good reason why you should ever watch it though.

5/10

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