The Bezonians

Some infrequent glimmers of very good dialogue are quickly overwhelmed by overused narration to replace character development, unlikable or annoying characters, implausible and overly long scenes that appear unrelated or irrelevant. If you like Vinnie Jones, he is only in the movie for 5 minutes. The Lola and Willard problem could have been more easily resolved than waiting like lambs to the slaughter. Why did we have to sit through Plato's overly long story about his experience with abortion that did not advance the plot. Sometimes interesting and quirky; but, not worth the time.

Story elements with potential but overacting, excessive character "development" via narration, lingering on boring shots and oddly long scenes makes it unexciting as well as predictable. Not the worst movie I've seen lately but not one I'd recommend.

From the outset this movie will remind you that you've seen it all before. It rips off Tarantino and Ritchie as best as it can without the A List talent. And that's it's problem. With a bit of imagination the director/writer could have put his own spin on the now 20 year old genre, but instead he chooses to rip off the narration style of Snatch. The freeze frame mid action shots of Guy Ritchie and even has a scene early on in a car where the two actors gave a completely unrelated iniquitous conversation about who's a better actor, Pacino or DeNero. What he fails to understand is that Ritchie and Tarantino gave us these styles. To copy them in a similar way is just not good enough. What we are left with is a film that's over written, over acted and over stylised without the budget. The Bezonians club is like an Elephant and Castle cab office from 1970s. It's so small. The characters are more annoying than interesting and you feel like the main guy is just reading pages of dialogue most of the way through. He's Dialling in his narration. It's the difference between learning your lines and thinking about your delivery and using autocue. It's why actors don't use dummy boards off camera. So the film isn't awful. It's just mehhhhhhh. My advice to the director and writer is... do something of your own. The script isn't bad, it's just old. Bring something new to the party.

The film then swings back in time to show us why he's being advised to run from this particular hitman. And for about half an hour we get to meet the regulars at Plato's club, The Bezonians, a gathering place for London's Greek community. There's Plato's wife Helena (Marina Sirtis, 5th Passenger, Star Trek: The Next Generation), local legend Achilles (Savvas D. Michael, Smoking Guns, Original Gangster), badass Costas (Peter Polycarpou), Taz (Jason Duff, Red Devil) who resells weed from Plato, Mavro Mike (Chris Tummings, Water, Deadmeat), Anthony (Jamie Crew, Villain) who is somewhat mentally challenged and a few others. They spend their time hanging out, partying with the strippers, and scheming about how to make it big.

Really enjoying films by this director, same director from smokin guns. Really loved watching the actor who played Plato, reminded me of Al Pacino. It was kind of like the Greek version of Goodfellas, some classic scenes especially the debate on who's the best actor, Pacino or De Niro. A proper lads film, sex, violence & humour. If you're a fan of lock stock here's another British classic.