I'm watching the film as I type and I'm trying to work out if there's anything more to
the plot than the brief billing on the back, but it seems unlikely. Pete Thompson (Rhys
Ifans, this time sporting a very dodgy Cockney accent) has a business, of which I've not
worked out what he does but it seems to involve buying things in and selling them on.
He's having problems with his usually-raunchy girlfriend Sarah Thompson (Sadie Frost).
He'd rather have sex with his secretary Charlie (TV presenter Dani Behr) and
his sperm count is up the creek - in fact the only decent performance on view comes from
a cameo of Van Der Valk's Barry Foster as his doctor, using the same South
African accent he spoke in BBC1's Roger Roger.
Top this off with a terrible Irish accent and plenty of f-words from Joseph Fiennes,
an abysmal movie-bad-girl-specific Russian accent from Tara Fitzgerald, a god-knows-what
accent from Steven Berkoff, cameos from Keith Allen, Nick Moran and a
few nobodies who portray less life than a mannequin and do you really care that the only
way Pete can solve his problems is to get involved with Russian mafia?
A reasonably decent picture with few drop-outs, but the widescreen 1.85:1 ratio is
non-anamorphic
(imdb.com states a ratio of 2.35:1
but it's a Super-35 print).
The average bitrate is 5.36Mb/s.
The sound is typical ProLogic from EiV. Certainly nothing to get worked up about.
Extras :
Chapters :
There are 16 chapters which isn't enough and the start times quoted inside are over
10 hours in the wrong (!)
Languages and Subtitles :
There's just one language on this disc - English in ProLogic and no subtitles.
Again. Again.
And there's more... :
A Theatrical Trailer lasting all of 32 seconds and a 6-minute Featurette
mixing in clips from the film with chat from the cast and crew. Certainly no surprises
here.
Menu :
A static and silent menu with options to start the film, select a scene
or view the trailer and featurette.
Overall, if you did like this film and can find it for around a tenner, it's worth
getting. Otherwise, don't bother. The half-mark this film gets is only for using
David Bowie's Survive over the closing credits and the fact that I refuse
to give any film zero points other than Fellini's Satyricon.
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
