First up is Rooster (co-writer Mark Tonderai), who has problems with
London's biggest drug dealer, Jesus (Gary Kemp). He was brought into the
mess by Phil (Alan Davies) and owes porn-baron Tunde, another guy you don't want
to upset, £3,000. The last guy who tried to screw the latter only owed
£200 and now stutters for life because he was forced to give him a
"batty wash".
Chang (Crunski) has an ingenious plan to get money by stealing books - and then a PC monitor -
from a library. However, since he needs five grand to "buy" his daughter from
the child's mother he'll have to come up with a far better plan. Will a big
DJing disco gig be the answer for all four of them, or would he be better advised
to steal the dog of a rich authoress and hold it to ransom? Or will things
come full circle and go from bad to even worse?
A romantic opportunity opens for Jess (Nathan Constance) who works in a
fast-food restaurant - before he gets sacked - when Mina (Crossroads' Beena,
aka Rebecca Hazelwood) walks in. She has a desperately annoying brother,
Raj (Casualty's Pal Aron) who works in the family's electronics shop.
However, Jess has an equally embarrassing grandad in Trevor Peacock (father
of The Comic Strip's Daniel Peacock), who offers his grandson a
less-than-ideal motor in which to drive Mina around.
CJ (David Oyelowo) loses his security job and his girlfriend Kelly
(Melanie Blatt) is going behind his back. To make matters worse, his own
mother is starring in porn films!
The film features cameos from Rescue Me's Stewart Wright as
Eastwood, a pretend-black version of Arthur Daley, buying and selling while
running a promotion business and attempting to get the lads their big DJ gig.
Cold Feet's
John Thomson plays a complete bastard of a football coach, partially
reminiscent of every games master who would shout endlessly and humiliatingly
at the class to get the end result.
Eastenders' Anna Wing (aka Lou Beale) appears as CJ's gran and
The Office's Ricky Gervais pops up as a nightclub bouncer.
There's a good quote from Rooster when forced to be part of a deal by Jesus:
"They could've killed us... could've tortured us...
but making up go to Birmingham? That's low, man!"
As for the "Life's What You Make It" reference, I knew precisely when
the outcome for that was just about to be revealed.
Presented in the original theatrical ratio of 1.85:1 and anamorphic, the
print has strong colours no noticeable problems, but then the film only came out last year
so you wouldn't expect any defects.
The sound is in Dolby Digital 5.1 and makes use of the speakers when the
incidental music and background tunes, such as Petula Clark's "Downtown",
are brought to the fore.
For a rental DVD, there's nothing in the way of extras that relates to the film.
All you get are two trailers for other Film Four movies,
K-PAX and
Crush.
Neither can be accessed from the main menu. These only play, normally,
when you first put the disc in the player, unless you're using a DVD-ROM player
or can access individual titles on the DVD.
The menu that you do get is static and silent and offers just the choice of
English subtitles and 'play movie', but while there are 13 chapters to the
film there's no scene selection menu.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
