Triggermen

This film seems as if it tried to be a clever comedy/hardcore gangster film along the lines of Snatch, Lock Stock, and some other good ones. Unfortunately, the cast was unimpressive, the story was unoriginal, and the dialogue was not snappy in the least. It just tried to follow a common formula and did nothing new. Furthermore, the things it did, it did poorly. No one would care about these characters, no one can sympathize with much of what went on, with the possible exception of Wahlberg's character.

You can't just take a bunch of character actors and throw them into a film and expect it to work. Some of the actors are incredibly competent, but with such limited material to work with, I suppose failure was inevitable.

Yes, this is a post Tarantino movie, full of lovable, deep, insightful hit men and con men. Yes, hit men are usually pretty cool guys, except for a rogue one like Boots who gives the noble profession a bad name. Well the movie starts out on a promising theme, after a generic aborted mob hit, two English con men are trapped in a fleabag motel in Chicago (somewhere in Canada actually) without enough money to pay the landlady. They are harmless small timers who take international crime trips to America as some sort of road bonding adventure. They are two popular British TV personalities, Neil Morrissey & Adrian Dunbar, who are okay but not standout in real life. So one of them happens upon some mob loot in a luggage scam he pulls in a high class hotel lobby. It was a down payment cash for a mob hit. So these two guys, neither are suicidal or great risk takers, decide to use the reserved room that was earmarked for the real hit men and find some more loot, a key to the target's room and a pistol with a silencer. Like I said, these are small time survivor types, so naturally they hang out in the room, living it up until the mobsters who hired them, sight unseen, comes to visit. All the through the movie, one asks, "why not cut out with some easy cash and go back to England to your pregnant witch girlfriend while the going is safe?"

Meanwhile the two American hit men, who were supposed to get the room and cash are hanging out trying to figure out what happened to their lucrative contract. One of them, played by a Don Wahlberg, falls in love with some woman who happens to be the mobster's to be hit daughter. See, he is a nice guy too, misunderstood, who just wants a normal suburban life yadda yadda. The other one is played by Michael Rappaport, so he is obnoxious, stupid and loud, but not a bad guy either. You know those hit men types.

So all sorts of lame hijinks ensue as the con men pretend to be hit men and are coerced by the bad hit men to go through with it. Meanwhile the two real hit men unravel the mystery while Donnie hits on the actress. So it goes on to a lame conclusion where only the bad hit men get it and everyone else gets a piece of the action. Prety harmless, but in that respect it is more Hollywood than indie or Tarantino.

I'd never heard of this film in Britain, but picked it up in a second hand DVD store having moved to Canada in 2007. I figured it would be a safe bet with so many well-known English actors and Donnie Wahlberg.

We enjoyed watching it. OK, so it wasn't laugh out loud funny throughout, but it was entertaining enough. Wahlberg was good. Forlani looked great throughout & did a good job. Morrisey was Morrisey (I'm not a big fan as he only ever plays one role). I preferred Dunbar and Plummer.

Overall, an enjoyable enough film. Surprised I'd never heard of it.

Worth seeing on a quiet night in.

I just can make it short: It´s a great movie! The actors play very well and the whole story never gets boring. Maybe some more twists would have been better but - again - to make it short: If you have a chance, see it if crime-comedy is what you like! 8 out of 10!!!

Easy waste of time, seeing some uK actors early in their careers. A but predictable.