Sex Lives of the Potato Men

I saw this at the cinema when it came out and had no idea it had been mauled by the critics. I laughed as much as I ever have done at a film and plenty others there seemed to find it just as funny. There are some great lines in the script and excellent performances from Mark Gatiss, Mackenzie Crook and (in some ways) Johnny Vegas.

The attacks on the film have been ridiculous. It is not smutty. It is not a revival of Carry on or the Confessions series. It has nothing in it for teenage onanists. Every other movie coming out of Hollywood these days spends half its time ogling its stars in lingering close up. Potato Men does not contain a single scene like that, nor was anyone cast as eye candy. Quite the opposite...

It shows a coarse, poor, bleak life in a coarse, bleak, but humorous way and does not try and convince anyone that we are watching the Salt of the Earth. It was probably that element that shocked the reviewers. Well received British movies like The Full Monty and Billy Elliot seem self- conscious about this issue. It is as though we have to be packaged for an imaginary American audience, who might otherwise have us down for horse riding snobs.

I am not claiming it to be a masterpiece. It has some weak elements that can be attributed mainly to the episodic plot and a low budget. There is a review here from trinitybay9 that sums it up very well. There are four sections and the one concerning Tolly is quite poor. There are some excellent comedy performances in the film but Dominic Coleman's is not one of them.

The real shame though is that the director is never likely to make another film. With the honourable exception of Johnny Vegas, even the cast responded gutlessly to the bad press. It is easily the best thing Mackenzie Crook has done since The Office, but he seems to consider it to be, artistically, a black mark on a CV that contains the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

All I expect from a comedy is that it's funny and that's what this film is. Funny.

OK, so ideally in addition there would have been some emotional resonance to counter and complement the comedy and the character arcs wouldn't just, sort of, limp to a hasty conclusion but I laughed throughout and so maybe that's being too picky.

People have compared this to the Carry On films and I hope Humphries is suitably horrified rather than flattered. The Carry On films severely lacked the depth, honesty and courage that Sex Lives of the Potato Men displays. I'd go as far to say Sex Lives of the Potato Men is a spot-on satire on recreational sex and the mores of the new millennium; where the seeking of new experiences is deemed more important than true intimacy and relationships.

It is bizarre that by simply holding a mirror up and reflecting our society as it exists, Humphries has been villified in the media.

I would strongly advise not to let middle-class metropolitan reviewers or the sexphobic moral minority or jealous bitter would-be film-makers put you off, see it for yourself and make your own mind up.

Watching Sex Lives of the Potato Men is kind of like consuming 12 pints of lager, watching The Word, eating a cold pizza, abusing yourself to Page 3 and waking up in a puddle of your own sick. You know you shouldn't enjoy it. You should be deeply ashamed. But somehow you can't help but look back and grin.

There's no doubt about it. Sex Lives of the Potato Men is badly written, poorly directed and does nothing to further British cinema, but if quality were determined by how many knob and fanny jokes you could squeeze into 80 minutes, it would rival Citizen Kane. And I guess that's what the film comes down to. Have you got a dirty, sleazy, sordid, twisted, juvenile sense of humour? I have, and that's why I found it funny.

Picking the most tasteless joke is kind of like deciding who the world's most evil dictator is, but I'd have to go for the phone call where one character is using a porn chat line while eating strawberry and fish paste sandwiches (don't ask) and it's revealed that Johnny Vegas is sitting next to him having his breakfast. It's disgusting, it's crude but it's also very funny. As is the scene where a man is taped to the ceiling while watching his wife. Then there are the group sex scenes where Vegas is more interested in the parking and fixing the bed. The whole film has a very dysfunctional attitude to sex, one that is very British. Here sex isn't meant to be enjoyed and it isn't about love. It's just done so that you can brag to your mates as you're downing your 15th pint of lager. It's recreation. In fact, the whole film plays up the male fear of relationships. Men don't want to be nagged and they don't want to feel suffocated. They just want to have lots of sex with lots of different women.

I think that part of the reason that Sex Lives of the Potato Men got such vitriolic reviews was because of how unattractive and desperate the characters are. This skinny guy and this fat bloke will do anything for sex. Anything. But although some of the escapades in the film are outlandish, the desperation isn't too far from the truth. Men will literally debase themselves in the worst way for a little bit of action. We have no shame and no standards. We'll sell our mothers and soil our good names for ten minutes with a woman, even if it's completely joyless. That's just the way we are. But although this doesn't provide one with a warm, cosy feeling, and while it shows people at their worst, I can't help but find it funny. Sad, pathetic, sex-obsessed men are amusing.

But actually, it's not just the men who are sad and perverted. The women here are just as desperate, just as debased and just as filthy. You've got randy mother-in-laws, amorous grannies and a chip shop girl who likes to watch men scrubbing floors. According to Sex Lives of the Potato Men, we're all hopelessly kinky. But that's another reason why I kind of like it. It makes me feel normal and well adjusted. Far from making me feel bad by showing a film with muscled hunks and unattainably gorgeous women, it makes me feel good by showing people that are even beneath me.

However, this isn't to say that the film is a work of comedy genius. The filmmakers' idea of subtlety is having 69 on the front door of a house and calling a fish and chip shop 'Fishy Fingers'. But because I'm a person that is highly amused by everything scatological, sexual and that which could be deemed bad taste, there were more than enough laughs for me. I mean, yeah, it's kind of like Viz with the wit and the intelligence removed, but those knob and fanny jokes come thick and fast. And besides, personally, I find Sex Lives of the Potato Men a million times less offensive than dross like Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones' Diary. Yes Sex Lives may be like a tawdry tabloid that stains your skin, but at least it's a relatively honest depiction of life in Britain.

Sex Lives of the Potato Men is about the sex lives of several men involved in delivering potatoes. So there are no surprises there. It is, in fact, pretty much what you might expect from the title: that is, it's a quirky comedy involving sex and potato men. At times the film works. It's an edgy, sometimes uncomfortable comedy about the lives of some rather unimportant and rather average men who are having problems of various sorts with women. Where the film clearly does not work, and why it failed at the box office, is that the quirky, uncomfortable parts are perhaps just a shade too quirky and uncomfortable. Instead of laughing during the scene of a man suspended from a basement ceiling masturbating over another man while he makes love to his wife, I think most of us just kind of groan awkwardly and wonder what Andy Humphries was thinking. Well, perhaps we are shown what he was thinking all too clearly.

Oh my, such pretension, such pontificating, such bollox forwarded by other IMDb users. This film "does exactly what it says on the tin" (sorry American readers). It's called SEX LIFE OF THE POTATO MEN - did you expect English PATIENT perchance ??

Admittedly - I, like another member thought it would be akin to "Bottom" (sorry American readers) but after 5 minutes had that notion blown out of the water.My word, it certainly was crude - but who cares - give me crude anytime ahead of American graphic slaughter.

I thought is beautifully disgusting, wonderfully crass, amazingly childish and above all exactly what I expected !!

Now how's that for pretension