Ashens and the Polybius Heist

This was certainly a decent movie. A couple of parts did make me physically wince. Co-writer Stuart Ashen referring to himself as "famous". Really? The use of "whatever" twice in the first scene. Just lazy. Was it the same shot used twice too? God I hope not.

It's a good comedy heist. All the pieces are in place and it goes at a good pace.

Stuart Ashen plays a version of himself and can certainly act. I thought he could cultivate a bit more vim though. Benny (Eli Silverman) is good but could tighten up his delivery in places. Kept reminding me of a younger Bill Bailey. Agonist (Stuart Barter) needed a much firmer directional hand. I have a feeling that his Stuggy rep had director Barmania twitten, so he let him spend a lot of time delivering his dialogue to the floor. A shame as he was genuinely funny and on point at times, showing flashes of what can only be described as genius and a rapid, quirky delivery on a par with Jessica Stevenson in Spaced, so it's a pity Barmania didn't encourage greater discipline as it would have paid dividends. Jarred Christmas on the other hand managed to be also slightly famous and across the board excellent. He and lawnmower-woman did beautiful things together. In fact, she (Joanna O'Connor) was excellent too, and reminded me at times of original Leia. Wondered if this was on purpose? My other front runners would be the lovely Vocal (Katia Kvinge) and Yiannis (Yiannis Vassilakis). Kvinge's downtrodden Irish misanthropic misfit was very convincing, with a refreshingly natural delivery and she nailed all but one of her accents. Vassilakis waded through a large amount of ill-judged character material and somehow still came out smelling of roses. Very William Thacker. Dan Hardcastle surprised me by being rather good with excellent comic timing. A couple of times he was slightly undermined by Vassilakis pulling focus a bit at the side of a shot. Oh lord yes, Dan Tomlinson. Well, he got better, but his first few lines! Who let him get away with that? Jeez. I should also mention Jonathan Ashen (Nigel Fairs) who I thought was brilliant, if underused. He could teach Barter a thing or two about focus. Lesson to Barmania, it's not all about the celebs.

Smaller parts I really liked were mattress man, heist bucket man, the weary security guard who had to put up with Jake/Kevin and, naturally, the ever-excellent Robert Llewellyn.

The film looks good, the cinematography is of a high standard, the sound effects are particularly well thought out and it's certainly a bonus to watch with headphones so you can enjoy the extra nuances.

Once again Ashens graces us with a legit film, featuring more geeky humour than ever before and hoping to dial everything ut to 11 for a knockout sequel.

Fortuneately this film is vastly superior to the first, which was more of an experiment to see if the concept of Stuart Ashen looking for weird put there gaming artifacts would stick. The first, if you remember had some bits that really worked and others that were just cringe inducing, but even so it was recieved well enough for a sequel.

The Polybius Heist already stands on better feet than it's predecessor, the acting has drastically improved across the board (there is an exception I will get to later) and while the overall goal of this film is pretty much the same as the first, the way that goal is written towards is really well done.

Now the acting exception. Daniel Hardcastle is awful in this film, I've no idea how he managed to get into this film, every line he reads is read exactly the same way and similar tone of voice, he cannot do subtlety or even clearly speak.

I'm someone who backed the crowdfunding campaign for this movie all the way back in 2018, so I'm very glad to have finally been able to see the movie!

I really enjoyed this film. More so than the first Ashens film actually, and I definitely think this one is more friendly to people who aren't familiar with Ashens' Youtube channel. It's not for everyone, but if you like this particular style of humour, you'll definitely have an enjoyable hour and a half.

Let me preface this by saying I watched this with my partner for a date night. I am a regular watcher of NerdCubed, but do not watch Ashens. My partner has not heard of either youtuber.

The opening 20-30 minutes of the film were a bit slow and choppy feeling, like it was edited and changed quite a bit, but once you got into the 'jist' of it, the movie took off and it was PROPERLY hilarious.

Thinking I was impartial to it, I asked my partner and they loved it as well. If you enjoy dry British comedy, and nerd culture, this is a MUST watch.

There were quite a few points where both of us burst into rolling laughter on the bed. I even imitated a certain "lawn-mower" scene for them later that night as a bit of a cheeky joke.

Overall, WATCH IT. it's 8 bucks, it supports individual creators, and it's a proper laugh.

While the synopsis might make this movie seem a bit nerdy and niche market, it reaches parts others can't reach. It is a blast. Lots of laughs and some great characters. Good to see some strong women characters. Loved the oh so stylish jumpers. Has production quality rarely reached in low budget productions.