The Business (DVD)

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THE BUSINESS on DVD
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Following the relative success of the ultimately disappointing "THE FOOTBALL FACTORY", Nick Love returns to the British film market with another predictable amalgamation of sex, drugs and mindless violence in a Costa Del Sol caper that exposes the limitations of a mediocre film director and his cast.

Where Guy Ritchie took an ailing British ...
...Love seems determined to drag the industry further back than ever. "THE BUSINESS" is another bland testament to his shortfalls and lack of original ideas. Take the same cast, concept and camerawork from your last effort and do it all over again in the sunshine. In the words of pretty much every character to be scripted in a Nick Love offering, one feels tempted to ask that oft-coined phrase from our tepid Cockney friends. Are you trying ... more

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THE BUSINESS on DVD
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Following the relative success of the ultimately disappointing "THE FOOTBALL FACTORY", Nick Love returns to the British film market with another predictable amalgamation of sex, drugs and mindless violence in a Costa Del Sol caper that exposes the limitations of a mediocre film director and his cast.

Where Guy Ritchie took an ailing British film market and used the same ingredients to produce cinema classics, so Nick Love seems determined to drag the industry further back than ever. "THE BUSINESS" is another bland testament to his shortfalls and lack of original ideas. Take the same cast, concept and camerawork from your last effort and do it all over again in the sunshine. In the words of pretty much every character to be scripted in a Nick Love offering, one feels tempted to ask that oft-coined phrase from our tepid Cockney friends. Are you trying to mug us off, or what?

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THE STORY
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Fearing for his personal well-being after attacking his mothers' abusive boyfriend, Frankie (Danny Dyer) takes up the offer of an escape to the sun in the guise of delivering a mysterious holdall to the ridiculously over-tanned Charlie (Tamar Hassan).

For reasons best known to the director, Charlie takes a shine to young Frankie and takes him under his wing by offering him a job as his personal driver. So far, so good. A nice little number on the Costa Del Crime and everything is looking rosy for our hero.

Enter the psychopathic Sammy (Geoff Bell), a chilling henchman with one eye on the next victim and the other on his excessively flirty girlfriend Carly (Georgina Chapman).
When Frankie starts cutting in on Sammy's relationship with Charlie, things begin to get tense. When Frankie starts taking a shine to Carly, it's only a matter of time before Sammy loses the plot and all hell breaks lose.

As Charlie's mob become more and more involved with a ridiculously plotted drug smuggling scheme, the cracks start to show and friendships become strained. Will Frankie cut his losses and run, or will the lure of "being somebody" prove too much for him as greed and addiction take their toll?

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THE CHARACTERS
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I'm so, so sorry for having to write this. For a short while I honestly believed this country had a gem on their hands with Danny Dyer. Superb as Moff in "HUMAN TRAFFIC", Dyer also rose above the amazingly poor Vinnie Jones in the remake of "THE MEAN MACHINE, in spite of the fact his role was little more than a cameo. Unfortunately Dyer seems to delight in being the most typecast actor of his generation and although playing chirpy cockney underdogs may mean an easy pay cheque, his luck isn't going to last forever and when the British public become as tired with Mockney Gangsterism as I am, you fear the worst for him.

There's nothing really wrong with Frankie as a character. He's likeable enough and there's a good kid hiding beneath the gullibility and naivety. It's just that we've seen Danny Dyer do this with alarming regularity and I'm bored to the teeth with it.

Tamar Hassan as Charlie does nothing for me whatsoever. His limp portrayal of Millwall mob general Fred in "THE FOOTBALL FACTORY" is flawlessly equalled in another damp squib of a performance. This guy is as static as a rabbit waiting to feel the quality of half-worn Dunlop tyre. When a character is as unrealistic as Charlie you generally need somebody of exceptional talent to pull the role off. Hassan simply doesn't have that talent at his disposal and it's almost sad to watch at times.

Equally, Georgina Chapman does little more than annoy in the role of the predatory Carly. Admittedly, she's a good looking girl and I can imagine most men watching this film wanting to sleep with her. From the perspective of a review, I'd sooner grab her by the scruff of the neck and slap her if there was any chance of livening her up a little. Have to admit that she does have the cutest freckles though!

The whole film is probably saved by the excellent Geoff Bell, who casts a frightening figure as Charlie's right hand man Sammy. Bell holds a psychotic spell over the viewer for most of his involvement in the film and you genuinely don't have a clue what he's going to do next. You'd like to see Sammy have a square go with Robert Carlysle's Begbie from "TRAINSPOTTING" - It'd be one hell of a good fight! The only drawback to Bell's performance is the most nancy perm I've ever seen in my life. If anyone ever casts Tony Woodcock as an axe-wielding nutcase he'll be able to do his homework here!

A quick mention too for the creditable performance of Roland Manookian as Sonny, the bussed-in rent boy who proves a wonderful distraction for the corrupt local Mayor. Having reformed from his former ways, Sonny is shocked when he is left alone with the Mayor and responds to an indecent proposition by stabbing his would-be suitor in the buttocks with a fork. As Charlie comes in to see what the commotion is all about, Sonny tells him that "the geezer got his knob out so I done him in the arse". "Good boy!" replies Charlie. Best moment of the film by a country mile!

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THE VISUALS
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The camerawork isn't actually that bad and the excellent use of colours against assorted Mediterranean desert backdrops work well. The 1980's setting allows for a little fashion fun as well. Dyer's emergence from a store changing room decked in classic 1983 Fila white is hilarious, as is the sheen on pretty much every suit worn in the film.

Shots from the inside of Charlie's packed nightclub are also very well carried out and give a feeling of fluency throughout proceedings. There's some good distance camerawork as well, particularly the panoramic capture of the beachfront early in the film.

One feels that if Nick Love could combine a decent storyline with a competent cast then the rest would follow because as a spectacle this film is reasonably acceptable.

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THE LOW DOWN
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With the exception of Geoff Bell's saving performance, this film simply doesn't cut it as a recommendation for anybody's future viewing apart from the most ardent of Danny Dyer's supporters. And that's where the problem starts for me.

Anyone who read my "THE FOOTBALL FACTORY" review will recall my praise for Frank Harper's contribution as the unnervingly volatile Billy Bright, and that's where the similarities begin. It takes an engaging psychopath to draw anything from either production and there are a host of other comparisons to be made throughout the whole of "THE BUSINESS".

Nick Love just about survived with the casting in "THE FOOTBALL FACTORY" but it didn't really blow anybody away, so why use prominent members of the cast in a similar offering only 12 months down the line? The scripting is also woefully tiresome. I'm a firm believer that foul language has its place when used as emphasis or as a context, but as repetitive filler for a poorly composed literary offering it becomes tedious and irritating.

Even the closing credits are exactly the same, with stills of each actor alongside subtitles in a perverse slide show that tells anyone who's been masochistic enough to stay in their seats for that long of what the character did next. By this stage of the film you really are past the point of caring.

Also, the ending itself seems to be recycled and bears too close a resemblance to the closing events in "TRAINSPOTTING" for my liking. It's a cause of concern to some extent. If the whole of the United Kingdom are so stereotypical that we can burn them in celluloid forever within the space of 5 cinematic hours then I might as well fish out my passport and bugger off now.

"LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS" became a benchmark for British gangster films as "GOODFELLAS" and "THE GODFATHER" did for the American market. "THE BUSINESS" is a poor attempt at catching the originality of its superior predecessor and should only be sampled by those who cope well with disappointment.

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THE SOUNDTRACK
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Kitsch 80's classic including Frankie Goes To Hollywood (Relax), Duran Duran (Planet Earth), Blondie (Heart Of Glass) and The Buggles (Video Killed The Radio Star).

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THE EXTRAS
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Because I rented this film via a postal subscription I wasn't sent the additional disc, but the retail copy includes a movie commentary, alternative ending and behind the scenes documentary. There's also a selection of cast and crew biographies and a few deleted scenes.

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PRICE

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"THE BUSINESS" is available on Amazon for a respectable £7.99. It was first released on DVD on January 30th 2006 and carries an 18 certificate.

 

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