Stephen Frears has rightfully been accorded as a very effective director who if not inspiring in his own right has always been able to get together excellent writing, producing and directorial teams to produce innovative and entertaining films.
He has definitely repeated the trick again ... Read review
WithDirty Pretty ThingsStephen Frears (The Grifters) gives us a dark gritty film examining ... more
London's seedier underbelly. Oscar nominated Chiwetel Ejiofor is Okwe, a Nigerian doctor who fled to Britain after the death of his family. So far he has evaded ...
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From Stephen Frears, the Oscar nominated director of The Grifters, Dangerous Liaisons, ... more
DIRTY PRETTY THINGS stars Audrey Tautou in a harrowing tale of struggle and survival for two immigrants who learn that everything is for sale in London's secret unde...
WithDirty Pretty ThingsStephen Frears (The Grifters) gives us a dark gritty film examining ... more
London's seedier underbelly. Oscar nominated Chiwetel Ejiofor is Okwe, a Nigerian doctor who fled to Britain after the death of his family. So far he has evaded ...
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From Stephen Frears the Oscar nominated director of 'The Grifters' 'Dangerous Liaisons' ... more
and 'High Fidelity' comes a new film set in London's secret underworld where everything is for sale. It's the story of a young man Okwe and young woman Senay wh...
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Thriller - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Timothy West, Neil Morrissey, Tara Fitzgerald, Annette Crosbie, Pauline Quirke, Rob Brydon, Denise Van Outen, John Thomson, Kevin Whately, David Suchet
Production Year: 2002 - Thriller - Director: K.C. Bascombe - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Jesse James, Rachel Skarsten, Charles Powell, Linda Purl, Kevin Zegars
Production Year: 2002 - Thriller - Director: Bharat Nalluri, Rob Bailey, Andy Wilson - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Matthew MacFadyen, Keeley Hawes, David Oyelowo, Peter Firth, Jenny Agutter, Lisa Faulkner
Advantages: Engrossing film, realistic depiction of London, Ejiofor's performance Disadvantages: Not for Daily Mail readers.
Stephen Frears has rightfully been accorded as a very effective director who if not inspiring in his own right has always been able to get together excellent writing, producing and directorial teams to produce innovative and entertaining films.
He has definitely repeated the trick again (and then some) in this absorbing drama about the world that London's illegal immigrants and assylum seekers live in.
Chiwetel Ejiofor ... ...illegally after being falsely accused by the state of murdering his wife (the police burnt his house down with his wife inside). To get by, he works as a receptionist at a hotel and as a mini-cab driver. He has been given shelter by Senay (Audrey Tatou looking very different from her Amelie role), a Turkish assylum seeker who works as a maid in the same hotel. As an assylum seeker she shouldn't be working. However, this turns out to be a very minor ... more
Stephen Frears has rightfully been accorded as a very effective director who if not inspiring in his own right has always been able to get together excellent writing, producing and directorial teams to produce innovative and entertaining films.
He has definitely repeated the trick again (and then some) in this absorbing drama about the world that London's illegal immigrants and assylum seekers live in.
Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Okwe, an Nigerian doctor who has arrived in London illegally after being falsely accused by the state of murdering his wife (the police burnt his house down with his wife inside). To get by, he works as a receptionist at a hotel and as a mini-cab driver. He has been given shelter by Senay (Audrey Tatou looking very different from her Amelie role), a Turkish assylum seeker who works as a maid in the same hotel. As an assylum seeker she shouldn't be working. However, this turns out to be a very minor worry.
One day, at his desk Okwe receives a call saying that the toilet in a room is blocked. When he goes to investigates, he finds a human heart blocking the U-Bend. Why is it there? What has been going on in this hotel? Despite his precarious position Okwe tries to find out.
In doing so, his and Senay's positions become more endangered. Immigration officers come to Senays house to check that she isn't working. Okwe has to make himself invisible to avoid implication. Yet what is most interesting about that scene is that it is the only contact the two main characters have with British citizens. To all intents and purposes Okwe and Senay don't exist to us as you or I won't them in the local supermarket, pub or cinema and you won't see them at all unless you are out on the street at 5am. As Okwe says in a very short sililoquoy, "We are the people who make your shirts, clean your shoes and suck your cock." These people are the backbone of our booming service economy yet have no share in its success or any rights while they are working for it.
As time goes on, it is obvious that unscrupulous hotel manager Sneaky (Sergi Lopez) has something to do with the heart. And the prize he can offer Okwe and Senay for being co-opted in his scheme are very great indeed, especially when he finds out Okwe is a doctor. However, I do not wish to spoil the denouement of this film if you haven't watched it yet so I'll keep schtum!
I think Frears captures the loneliness and precariousness of this unprotected and unregulated sector of London life very well. Ejiofor puts in a splendid performance as a good but morally troubled man who loves Senay but is torn with guilt about the indirect part he played (by opposing the military government in Nigeria) in his wife's death. Tatou succeeds in utilising a potent mixture of vulnerability and streetwiseness. And of the minor characters, Guo Yi (Benedict Wong) stands out. A political refugee from China who is thus able to legally work as an NHS mortuary assistant, he is able to present a lighter side to Okwe's life. His mood alters from resignedness to intellectuall enquiry and good humour and he eventually helps Okwe and Senay to a possible new life.
Another eye-catching feature is that the majority of the actors are not white Britons and this helps cast this film as a genuine and original alternative to the depiction of London as a Notting Hill Disneyland. Combine this with a genuinely moving and thrilling storyline and you have a highly reccomended film.
Advantages: Gives an insight into the choices faced by illegal immigrants Disadvantages: Bit slow to get started
Dirty Pretty Things is a movie that explores the daily choices and dramas that are faced by poor, underprivileged immigrants. We are taken on a chilly ride through London’s seedier side of immigrant oppression, focusing on the way they are treated, particularly those without papers.
Since there's no shot of Big Ben or any other London landmark, you would barely know that this film even takes place in London. Though the posh Baltic Hotel looks classy ... ...they come here to do dirty things in the night. We make it all pretty in the morning." Knowing Okwe's problems, Juan tries to persuade him to go along with the Baltic Hotel program. As we discover, Juan is mixed up in various black market smuggling schemes, ranging from trading in truffles, to providing body parts from illegal immigrants desperate for a passport. Juan soon pushes Okwe into professional service when an operation goes bad, and an East ...
londongirl24 21.01.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Dirty Pretty Things (DVD)
Advantages: well done pictured Disadvantages: pretty depressing view
...are coming across. Dirty Pretty Things is a strange film, a sort of mixture of thriller and drama. You're not quite sure what to expect at first. I think Frears captures the loneliness of this unprotected and poor lifestyle sector of London very well. In a way, this is a typical situation of illegal immigrants in UK. Mind you, lately UK Cinema is trying hard to present the immigration as worse as possible, distributing films as a social message to ... ...British fab. way of life. Dirty Pretty Things is an interesting look into an underbelly of London that officially doesn't exist. Admit tingly, a British status whenever in the world is politically and socially totally different from status of Turks, Nigerians, Bosnians etc. So a British person cannot know this feeling of being on the end of a social food chain. However, there’re many many Brits without jobs, so a native speaker’s rage is also understandable. ...
barefoot777 22.10.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Dirty Pretty Things (DVD)
Advantages: Great setting, clever unpredictable plot Disadvantages: Very dark
This is a fairly low budget film. I don’t really remember it having a cinema release, maybe it was more of an arthouse type of film. The film deals with a number of illegal immigrants that are living in London. All the immigrants are portrayed in a more positive light than we are used to hearing from the media. They are working hard in menial jobs, for less than the minimum wage. Meanwhile they have to avoid the attention of immigration officers.
... ...works as a receptionist at a hotel and a minicab driver. In his homeland he was a doctor. He lives with Senay(Audrey Tatou) a Turkish asylum seeker who works as a maid. As an asylum seeker she cannot work, whereas Okwe is not even supposed to be in the UK. Clearly that neither of them can fully contribute is a waste of their skills.
The film takes a very sympathic view of the problems with immigrants and the way society sweeps them under the carpet ...
Fantasyman 08.04.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Dirty Pretty Things (DVD)
Advantages: An insightful and interesting film Disadvantages: A bit slow-moving
This film is about the side of London you don't notice, of the people who work in the background of society, the chambermaids, kitchen hands and waiters who live illegally in Britain. Exploitation is the order of the day here.
Directed by the magnificent Stephen Frears (High Fidelity), and starring Audrey Tatou (Amelie) and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
The story is centred around the dodgy goings-on in a London hotel. Senay (Tatou), and Okwe (Ejiofor) are ... ...share a poky bedsit together. Both working without papers, they struggle to keep their heads above water while trying to avoid being caught by immigration. Senay is from Turkey, and Okwe is a Nigerian doctor, who fled his country after being wrongly accused of murder.
As well as trying to avoid arrest, the two leads discover a black market operation in living organs run by the seedy hotel manager Juan (Sergei Lopez).
The film looks at the way illegal ...
Benn3004 05.09.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dirty Pretty Things (DVD)
Advantages: Well-shot, correctly paced, clever script with funny lines even Disadvantages: Predictable, morbid, slightly stereotypical outtake on darker London
I bought a second-hand copy of this off eBay for three quid or thereabouts and found it to be good value for money. The fact that all the characters are so typical should spoil all sense of realism (neatly there is a drunken Russian doorman, a struggling Nigerian taxi driver, a kind-hearted whore of Caribbean descent, a quirky Chinese man who works in the hospital, a timid Turkish cleaner girl etc) but somehow the clever lines carry the story through. ... ...shot at night) because of its morbid theme but the dialogue is so refreshing and quirky i found myself laughing many times during the film. SYNOPSIS: Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is an illegal immigrant brother who works in a hotel and discovers that all is not as it appears when he finds a human heart in the toilet bowl of one of the rooms. I suspect this film is made more for the American audience than for the English because the emphasis on the characters ...
habitualdamnation 02.07.2005 (03.07.2005)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dirty Pretty Things (DVD)
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Advantages: Fantastic combinations of everything Disadvantages: Nothing
DirtyPrettyThings is a gritty urban thriller set in and around the streets of London. It is a cleverly filmed film, providing a good plot with a sort of social commentary as we follow two illegal immigrants as they struggle to find some standard of life in our nation's capital.
Right from the off, the most powerful part of the film is its visual effects, as shown by Okwe at the beginning, and then further on in the film by Shenay. Okwe is a Nigerian immigrant, working as a taxi driver by day and a hotel porter by night. Shenay is a maid in the hotel, and she lets Okwe sleep on her couch. There is relatively little conversation between the two of them, and it is this that makes the situation more believable than if they had rabbited on at each other.
As the film develops, Okwe makes a gruesome discovery one night, leading the pair ...
Advantages: good to hear Disadvantages: good to hear if you are a fan
I personally love the band so i think this DVD is awesome although the quaility isn't the best if your a fan it is a must.
If ur a fan u must have this one
Main specs
Genre: Musicals & Music Films - Rock & Pop
Classification: 15 years and over
Release details
DVD Region: Region 2 (Europe)
Studio(s): UNIVERSAL MUSIC OPERATIONS
Release date: 16/10/2006
No of Discs: 1
Catalogue No: 1707083
Barcode: 0602517070837
Band: DirtyPrettyThingsDVD Description
Features the indie rock band DirtyPrettyThings live at the Kentish Town Forum. Includes the songs 'Bang Bang You're Dead', 'Deadwood', and 'Last Of The Small Town Playboys' among many others. Amaray version.
Languages
Main Language: English
Technical information
Sound: 5.1 Surround, Stereo
Ciao
Listed on Ciao since : 12/11/2006 ...
Advantages: Funny, great music Disadvantages: Lot of swearing
This is quite probably the best cartoon musical ever made. The first 45 minutes contain some of the funniest moments of any film last year. The final section of the film is not as funny as the story is fleshed out but it still has its moments. The songs are original, very funny and catchy (and oscar-worthy). The characters are as funny as on the series and they actually swear, none of the bleeped out nonsense from TV. Don't listen to anyone who says things are best left to the imagination, Kenny is there for all with dirty imaginations.
The DVD is pretty good, a director's commentary would have been nice, but the picture is excellent and the music video is adequate. A must for all South Park fans. ...
Hotel Workers, Okwe and Senay are linked by a shocking discovery, they can't turn to anyone else for help and they will be very lucky to escape alive...
Release details
DVD Region
DVD
Studio(s)
WALT DISNEY STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAINM; ELEVATION SALES; TECHNICOLOR DISTRIBUTION SERVICES
Chiwetel Ejiofor gives a remarkably understated performance in director Stephen Frears's offbeat and gripping drama DIRTY PRETTY THINGS. Ejiofor stars as Okwe, a Nigerian who is trying to make a new life for himself in London, where he works days as a taxi driver and nights as a hotel desk receptionist. When he discovers a human heart in a hotel-room bathroom, he cannot go to the police because he is an illegal alien with a mysterious past he refuses to talk about. Suddenly he is thrust into the middle of a dangerous situation that threatens to have tragic results for him and those around him. French ingenue Audrey Tautou costars as a Turkish woman who has sought asylum in England, where she is allowed to live but not work. But she must make money, so she works secretly while the government tries to catch her. Benedict Wong turns in a fine supporting performance as Guo Yi, a morgue employee who shares wise and humorous sayings with Okwe. Frears directs the unusual proceedings with a deft hand, slowly revealing secrets that are as gruesome as they are poignant.
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