Shopping (DVD)

...a daring ram-raid on a shopping mall, soemthing that has never been attempted before. He plans to pull off the raid before Tommy but will he do it and at what price?

The performances are merely adequate. Law and Frost failed to stir up any empathy with me and I felt that this was a fundamental flaw with the film. Had I felt inspired by the acting I might have been able to identify with their motives for stealing cars, endangering lives ...
...felt that the performances were not good enough to do that and so I found them pathetic instead. Pertwee is slightly more credible and manages to be at least a little threatening and unpleasant.

And what of Sean Bean. He appears some forty-five minutes in, and even then only fleetingly, and puts in a rather mediocre performance, although, admittedly, he's not got much to work on.

There are good minor performances form ... more

I am a bit of a Sean Bean fan and when I heard that he was in "Shopping" I hurried along to my local cinema to see it. It is a film I had almost forgotten until I recently acquired a copy on video and gave it another go.

"Shopping" is a British movie which tells the story of Billy (Jude Law), a young man who is released from prison at the start of the film. He is met at the prision gates by Jo (Sadie Frost, with a shocking and seemingly pointless Irish accent - I could find no reason for the character to be Irish). She has with her a very expensive, high-powered car and she is very proud of it. She would be - she didn't pay a penny for it. Billy and Jo are two young people obsessed with the buzz of stealing top of the range cars, racing them, taunting the police and ram-raiding - driving the stolen cars into large plate-glass shop windows and stealing goods from the store.

It soon becomes apparent, though, that for Billy and Jo, the thrill is tied up in the chase - the adrenalin rush from flying round he streets at top speed, hanging out of the windows and jeering at the police doing their best to keep up but ultimately failing. When they do ram-raids they do it for the sheer exhilaration of it, not for major financial gain. In one such example, they smash a huge window, drive and Jo calmly climbs out of the car, removes a pair of designer sunglasses from a mannequin and is satisfied.

I found the continual portrayal of Billy and Jo as the merely adrenalin fixated goodies annoying and it did not do anything to make me understand why people do it. These two characters are set opposite Tommy (Sean Pertwee), the leader of a rival gang. Making money is his business and he is not someone to upset. he and his gang ram-raid to order, supplying their clients with designer clothes, electrical equipment and CDs as requested. He also needs a steady supply of fast cars for the nightly races held around a disused industrial area - for this job he pays about fifteen quid and a bag of ecstasy.

Tommy recognises Billy's skills as a racer but has litle respect for his supposed standards of right and wrong. He taunts Billy and when he doesn't respond, he turns his attentions to Jo. When Billy is not there, he tries to tempt her to work for him and make some serious money instead of just playing .

Jo wants Billy to give up this lifestyle. She wants them to go away together and start a new life. Clearly she cares for Billy more than he does for her. He says at one point that there's no longer such a thing as safe sex - for him, joy-riding with all the risks attached to it is a much better proposition and he sees it as a more than adequate substitute.

Eventually Billy accedes to Jo's pleas. He will give it all up but not until he has got the ultimate coup over Tommy. He knows that Tommy is planning a daring ram-raid on a shopping mall, soemthing that has never been attempted before. He plans to pull off the raid before Tommy but will he do it and at what price?

The performances are merely adequate. Law and Frost failed to stir up any empathy with me and I felt that this was a fundamental flaw with the film. Had I felt inspired by the acting I might have been able to identify with their motives for stealing cars, endangering lives and breaking half a dozen laws at once. However, I felt that the performances were not good enough to do that and so I found them pathetic instead. Pertwee is slightly more credible and manages to be at least a little threatening and unpleasant.

And what of Sean Bean. He appears some forty-five minutes in, and even then only fleetingly, and puts in a rather mediocre performance, although, admittedly, he's not got much to work on.

There are good minor performances form Jonathan Pryce and Marianne Faithful but I can't help but wonder what prompted either of them to appear in this below average movie.

"Shopping" deals with themes which were highly topical at the time of its making (1993) but presents them a few years in the future. I think this helped salvage a little by allowing set and costume designers free reign to let their imaginations run wild. As a result, the "baddies" wear a modern take on Hells Angels' style with lots of leather and studs and the car races take place in the sort of locations you might see Arnie in in the Terminator - industrial landscapes, neon-lit and futuristic.

The soundtrack also lends some much needed support to the film. Barrington Pheloung (he of "Inspector Morse" fame) composed the original music and other music comes from the likes of EMF and Orbital giving it a thumping urban, techno soundtrack which works well during the frenetic car chases.

If you like car chases you'll probably love this film. I thought th fist ones were great, well presented and imaginative but I soon tired of them. With a lack of decent acting I found that there was nothing to keep me interested - not even Sean Bean!

I can see that director Paul Anderson wanted to create a dark movie along the lines of other British art-house movies of the time but I feel that he failed dismally. Any film can benefit from decent special effects and exciting car chases but I felt there was no substance there to begin with.

The issues thrown up by this subject are not really examined in any great depth - what I think was originally planned toask incisve questions about the nautre of the film's subject got lost as the film became a British version of the cliched American car chase movie. The film started with good intention when we saw how Billy and Jo are more interested in the thrills than the finacial aspects of their crimes but it didn't look at the more sinister sides to it. The death of a boy racer is a monir episode in the film and I felt that this did much to discredit the movie as a whole.

I have given the film three stars - had it not been for the music, sets and costumes it would have been a lowly two stars.

 

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