... I was, in fact, very pleasantly surprised – High Heels and Low Lifes was a very successful balance of comedy and excitement – and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The film centres around two female lead characters. Shannon is a beautiful brunette nurse. Extremely dedicated to her job, ... Read review
Directed by Mel Smith, HIGH HEELS & LOW LIFES follows two best friends, Frances (Mary ... more
McCormack) an aspiring actress still waiting for her big break, and Shannon (Minnie Driver), a nurse, struggling to do good with limited resources, who accidental...
With its limp efforts to mix comedy and drama,High Heels and Low Lifesis in many ways a ... more
faltering attempt to combine the most successful aspects of recent British cinema. Directed by Mel Smith (whoseThe Tall Guywas unarguably a fine film), the movie tr...
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With its limp efforts to mix comedy and drama,High Heels and Low Lifesis in many ways a ... more
faltering attempt to combine the most successful aspects of recent British cinema. Directed by Mel Smith (whoseThe Tall Guywas unarguably a fine film), the movie tr...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Two best friends Frances (Mary McCormack) an aspiring actress still waiting for her big ... more
break and Sharon (Minnie Driver) a nurse struggling to do good with limited resources accidentally overhear a heist taking place in their neighborhood. Frustrat...
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With its limp efforts to mix comedy and drama,High Heels and Low Lifesis in many ways a ... more
faltering attempt to combine the most successful aspects of recent British cinema. Directed by Mel Smith (whoseThe Tall Guywas unarguably a fine film), the movie tries to work the modern gangster genre into a more farcical setting. By basing his film on the story of two friends Frances (Mary McCormack) and Shannon (Minnie Driver), Smith is aiming for aThelma&Louisefeel, but falls some way short of the mark.Having literally stumbled into a local bank robbery, the pair devise a plan to blackmail the gang behind the heist--a plan that descends into a rather predictable farce. McCormack certainly makes energetic use of the limited material she has to work with, and while kudos must go to Driver for picking a low-budget British film, she simply has been much better in her Hollywood work (notably the more understated humour ofGrosse Pointe Blank). Indeed, its female leads aside, the cast is almost predominantly assembled from British television comedy shows, with Mark Williams fromThe Fast ShowandBig Train's Danny Dyer acquitting themselves particularly well. Overall, though, it's not an awful lot to write home about.On the DVD:High Heels and Low Lifesthe DVD, like the film itself, is fairly average. The soundtrack (a vibrant mix of old and new) certainly sounds good and Smith's snappy visual style is well represented. The special features, however, fail to offer us anything particularly new or exciting, featuring the now standard featurette, audio commentary from Smith and writer Kim Fuller, and a peculiar thing called an "action overload"--essentially the trailer without the voiceover. --Phil Udell
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With its limp efforts to mix comedy and drama,High Heels and Low Lifesis in many ways a ... more
faltering attempt to combine the most successful aspects of recent British cinema. Directed by Mel Smith (whoseThe Tall Guywas unarguably a fine film), the movie tries to work the modern gangster genre into a more farcical setting. By basing his film on the story of two friends Frances (Mary McCormack) and Shannon (Minnie Driver), Smith is aiming for aThelma&Louisefeel, but falls some way short of the mark.Having literally stumbled into a local bank robbery, the pair devise a plan to blackmail the gang behind the heist--a plan that descends into a rather predictable farce. McCormack certainly makes energetic use of the limited material she has to work with, and while kudos must go to Driver for picking a low-budget British film, she simply has been much better in her Hollywood work (notably the more understated humour ofGrosse Pointe Blank). Indeed, its female leads aside, the cast is almost predominantly assembled from British television comedy shows, with Mark Williams fromThe Fast ShowandBig Train's Danny Dyer acquitting themselves particularly well. Overall, though, it's not an awful lot to write home about.On the DVD:High Heels and Low Lifesthe DVD, like the film itself, is fairly average. The soundtrack (a vibrant mix of old and new) certainly sounds good and Smith's snappy visual style is well represented. The special features, however, fail to offer us anything particularly new or exciting, featuring the now standard featurette, audio commentary from Smith and writer Kim Fuller, and a peculiar thing called an "action overload"--essentially the trailer without the voiceover. --Phil Udell
Postage & Packaging:£1.21 Availability:Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Production Year: 1957 - Drama - Director: Leo McCarey - Original Language: English - Classification: Universal - Starring: Cathleen Nesbitt, Deborah Kerr, Cary Grant, Richard Denning, Neva Patterson, Fortunio Bonanova
Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
Advantages: Funny, fast-paced, enjoyable movie Disadvantages: Rather unsophisticated
...fact, very pleasantly surprised – High Heels and Low Lifes was a very successful balance of comedy and excitement – and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The film centres around two female lead characters. Shannon is a beautiful brunette nurse. Extremely dedicated to her job, she is let down in her personal life by an ignorant, disinterested boyfriend who spends all his time listening in on other people’s telephone conversations, ... ...it seems….
High Heels and Low Lifes is funny enough to be described as a comedy, but exciting enough to fall into the thriller genre – and the film makers have combined the two elements together very effectively. Despite some rather woolly scripting and the odd silly moment, there is nothing too farcical about this film – and the plot flows to a logical (if not slightly predictable) conclusion. The comedy of this ... more
I’m not a huge fan of comedy films. When a film does its out and out best to be funny, it usually fails miserably. I tend to find things funnier if the humour is more subtle, and is a complimentary part of the film, rather than the whole premise. When I read that this film was directed by Mel Smith (of Alas Smith and Jones fame) I was therefore not terribly hopeful – I was expecting something along the lines of Nuns On The Run. I was, in fact, very pleasantly surprised – High Heels and Low Lifes was a very successful balance of comedy and excitement – and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The film centres around two female lead characters. Shannon is a beautiful brunette nurse. Extremely dedicated to her job, she is let down in her personal life by an ignorant, disinterested boyfriend who spends all his time listening in on other people’s telephone conversations, and recording the output as “music”. Frances is a feisty American blonde who has come to England to pursue a career as an actress – with little success. When Shannon’s boyfriend forgets her birthday, it is left to Frances to provide the entertainment, and the two girls go for a night out on the town.
After a night of alcoholic debauchery, the two girls stagger home to Shannon’s apartment, where they exchange life stories and get even more drunk. As their drunken antics continue, Frances happens across Shannon’s boyfriend’s recording equipment and listens in on a few conversations for herself. When the two girls overhear a young man talking to his girlfriend, they initially dismiss him as a loser, and record his telephone number so that they can call him back anonymously and set him straight on a few things. As they continue to eavesdrop they are shocked to discover that the young man is already half way through a major robbery – and they are even more shocked to discover that it is taking place in the same street as Shannon’s apartment.
They decide to report the incident to the police immediately, but possibly as a result of their rather inebriated state, the local station shows little interest in their allegations, and they return home to sleep it off. When the pair see the news reports the following day, they realise that the £10 million robbery on the headlines is the same one they have some knowledge of, and quickly get together to decide what they action they should take. Against Shannon’s better judgement, Frances manages to persuade her friend that they should contact the mystery man – they have his telephone number after all – and blackmail him into handing over some of his ill-gotten gains. They decide that if they can get him to pay them £500,000 they will donate some money to Shannon’s hospital, and enjoy the rest for themselves. It all sounds very straight forward – but two days, a dead tramp, an exploding suitcase and a few psychopathic bank robbers later they begin to realise that nothing is ever as straight forward as it seems….
High Heels and Low Lifes is funny enough to be described as a comedy, but exciting enough to fall into the thriller genre – and the film makers have combined the two elements together very effectively. Despite some rather woolly scripting and the odd silly moment, there is nothing too farcical about this film – and the plot flows to a logical (if not slightly predictable) conclusion. The comedy of this film is more about the dialogue than the situation – there is nothing funny about getting shot, after all – but the film knows when to be serious and when to laugh at itself.
The two leading ladies are excellent. I’ve never been a big fan of Minnie Driver, but as the sexy nurse, Shannon, she really does the business. Blending feminine compassion with girlie stupidity, she is very convincing and also very likeable. Her partner in crime Frances really made me laugh – it is left to Frances to make the telephone calls to the bad guys, and her fake Cockney accent is very funny. This isn’t actually a family film – there is a fair bit of violence and the odd bit of swearing – but it’s all done in a relatively gentle way, so it won’t frighten the kids. This is one of those English movies that looks like it’s been made for an American audience – everything looks quaint, from the red phone boxes, to the jolly English “cops”, but it all makes a pleasant change from the usual dowdy working class image portrayed in films like The Full Monty. Another thing that I liked was the soundtrack. Featuring well-known tracks from Faithless, Sugababes and some classic disco tracks, it is lively as the film, and runs like a Top of The Pops show.
There are lots of familiar faces – nearly all the actors in the film were familiar to me, from various television dramas, comedy series or commercials – and Mel Smith pops up himself in an extremely brief cameo performance. Minnie Driver is obviously well-known to Hollywood, but Mary McCormack (who played Frances) was unfamiliar to me before I watched this. Michael Gambon is quite convincing as the big chief, but he appears in the film for only a relatively short period of time. The real nasty guy is a villain called Mason, played by Kevin McNally who may be familiar to you from Sliding Doors.
So is it all good? Well, no – of course not. The film is plagued by analogy and has been compared to cinema monsters like Thelma and Louise and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. There are very few similarities between these films – in fact, the film runs more like an S Club 7 adventure than a serious action movie – so I would recommend against comparing to other films. To start with, the girls are often quite irritating, but once they’ve got bored with the “girl power” image they settle down into quite likeable characters. The British obsession with cow pats continues however, and sadly Mel couldn’t resist having someone fall face first into one.
These things aside, I would still heartily recommend this film – I enjoyed it more than I have done any other film for a long time. It’s lively, it’s funny, it’s exciting and it’s generally very well made. I watched the film on DVD, but the extras were limited and gratuitous so you won’t be missing a thing if you hire this on video.
Advantages: original script, many household names... Disadvantages: soundtrack
I went into 'High Heels and Low Lifes' knowing that it had been written by a writer whose credits included SpiceWorld and Miami 7, so as you can imagine, I wasn't overly excited about seeing a special preview of this film. However, don't let this writer's previous attempts put you off. This time, Kim Fuller has come up with a genius script which is highly original and guaranteed to make any member of the audience laugh.
The two stars of the film, ... ...overhear a phone call. However, the phone call they fall across lets them know of the identities of a group of men who are breaking into a nearby bank. Bored with the dull routine of their lives, they devise a plan to blackmail money from the robbers by threatening to go to the police if the money isn't received. However, the gang aren't forthcoming with the money and this is what the film revolves around.
Along with these two main characters, there's ...
Stem 07.07.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of High Heels And Low Lifes (DVD)
Advantages: quite funny, great performances, easy to follow plot Disadvantages: slow start
Minnie Driver is the star of this Thelma&Louise-esque comic tale of big-money bank jobs and blackmail. Minnie plays Shannon, a honest and hard-working NHS nurse who, along with her best American friend, Frances (Mary McCormack), intercepts a phone call being made by a geezer who is in the process of assisting in a safety-deposit-box robbery. Having already attempted to report the incident to the police and not being believed on account of the fact ... ...the robbers netted £10m they decide to blackmail them for £300K. However things don't go quite as smoothly as the girls had hoped and soon their lives are in peril as word of their plan gets to the big boss man of the gang and a couple of inept comedy police-men seem to be just a couple of steps behind them. And that's it. No Russian doll multi-layered plot of cross and double cross, just a nice simple, easy to follow plot. And much to my surpirse ...
daveking 13.07.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of High Heels And Low Lifes (DVD)
Advantages: Would suit a good mix of tastes - comedy, action, adventure... Disadvantages: Suppose you could argue about cinema prices... but nothing else comes to mind!
"High Heels and Low Lifes", starring Minnie Driver and Mary McCormack, is about two women (funnily enough!) who overhear a walkie-talkie conversation between some bank robbers during a heist in a local bank. They go to the police, but owing to the near-riot at the station, their somewhat flimsy report isn't given much attention, so they decide to take matters into their own hands, and blackmail the robbers. However things go slightly wrong when the ... ...who have somehow found out about their scheme, and are holding them to ransom.
On the surface, this film sounds like it would be a good action film, but it would be terribly unfair to write a review of it without mentioning some of the hilariously funny moments in the film, which had me rolling about laughing (although the people next to me in the cinema might not have agreed that it was quite as funny!) I won't spoil any of the jokes, but trust ...
so3003 22.07.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of High Heels And Low Lifes (DVD)
Advantages: Top Brit flick Disadvantages: Too far fetched?
I’ll be perfectly honest in saying I didn’t expect much from this. People saying it was the British Thelma & Louise put me off straight away (as if it would be, they said that about Beautiful Creatures too) and after aforementioned Beautiful Creatures (which wasn’t all that) I thought it would be more of the same. I was wrong.
To compare this to Beautiful Creatures isn’t really do-able….this is much more a comedy whereas ... ...to BC, it is different.
Two Women, Shannon (Minnie Driver) and Frances (Mary McCormack), go out on the drink as it’s Shannon’s birthday. As they’re out getting lashed a bank robbery begins to take place. The robbers have got a guy on the roof as lookout, Danny, (the guy from Human Traffic who gets caught spanking the monkey) who is a bit of an idiot. After the girls get in and the robbery is still in progress, they pick up Danny ...
Staggly 25.07.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of High Heels And Low Lifes (DVD)
Advantages: Funny and fast paced Disadvantages: None
...The acting is of a high calibre, with Minnie Driver as Shannon and Mary McCormack as Frances striking sparks off each other. There is a fine supporting cast; Michael Gambon as crime lord Kerrigan, Danny Dyer as the unfortunate Danny and Mark Stephens of "Fast Show" fame as the dithering detective. Comedian Junior Simpson even makes a cameo as a drug dealer. The comedic pedigree of the film is hardly a surprise when you consider that the director ... ...Jone). I think we can finally forgive him for the debacle that was "Morons From Outer Space".
The action sequences are simple but effective, if somewhat unoriginal. But a nurse with a gun will always get my vote.
The film will always suffer comparisons with "Thelma and louise" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels", but is far funnier than the former and far less gratuitously violent than the latter.
This is probably the ideal first-date movie, ...
afy9mab 12.07.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of High Heels And Low Lifes (DVD)
The story of two best friends, Frances and Shannon who find themselves up to their necks in it when they decide to blackmail and gang of robbers. Things don't go exactly as they planned, however they try to draw the gang into their web of deceit and trickery...
Release details
DVD Region
DVD
Studio(s)
Touchstone Home Video; Technicolor Distribution Services
Release date
15/06/2006
No of Discs
1
Catalogue No
BED 888395
Barcode
5017188883955
Screenwriter
Kim Fuller
Languages
Main Language
English
Subtitle Language
English
Technical information
Special Features
High Heels Featurette, Audio Commentary With Mel Smith And Kim Fuller, Action Overload
Aspect Ratio
1.85 Wide Screen
Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1
Dubbing Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1 English
DVD Description
THELMA AND LOUISE meets BRIDGET JONES' DIARY in this madcap British caper starring Minnie Driver as Sharon, a young, working-class nurse struggling to survive the work-a-day world of London with her best friend Frances (Mary McCormack). One night, while Sharon and Frances are eavesdropping on cell phone calls using Sharon's deadbeat boyfriend's police scanner, they overhear a conversation detailing a top-dollar bank heist about to take place in their neighborhood. Desperate for cash and down-on-their-luck, the girls decide to go against their initial intentions to report the crime and do the unthinkable: blackmail the thieves for a cut of the money. But, what begins as a half-cocked plan turns deadly when they are faced with the ruthless ringleader of the band of thugs (Kevin McNally), who will stop at nothing to derail his new competition. This mod caper, featuring 1960s era split screens and a classic pair of bumbling detectives, is a delirious combination of screwball comedy and Guy Ritchie-inspired action. Minnie Driver and Mary McCormack are delightfully kooky as the naive nurse turned femme fatale and the aspiring actress who finally gets a chance to embody new and unusual characters. Hilarious gags and nonstop action combine to give this lively adventure a zestful and brazen energy that erupts in a powerhouse finale. HIGH HEELS AND LOW LIFES features an hysterical cast of characters including Michael Gambon who costars as an eerily feminine, Godfather-like, criminal mastermind.
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