Day of the Sirens

Saw this at a student friends house who has a collection of all of the directors other titles, and he watches them when he's wrecked and laughs himself silly. I however didn't quite see the funny side as I watched something that was quite honestly the worst film I've ever seen. Some of the scenes were so badly shot, lit, acted, directed and written, half the time I felt like the director was secretly mocking the audience - laughing at us while we watch open mouthed at this horrific display of poor acting, terrible dialogue and cheap hand held dodgy video camera-work.

The ultimate shot for me was when a gang of "commandos" storm a house that is about to explode, in a scene blatantly stolen from SPEED. I couldn't believe it when my friend pointed out to me that one of these "commandos" looked about 20 stone and had a ponytail! Another corker is when the lead actress (if you can call her that) is "sealed" in a car as their is a risk of chemical/nuclear contamination. However what they use to do the sealing is obviously shaving foam!!!!! It's like an early episode of Doctor Who, but without the snappy dialogue and convincing performances. Saaed Jaffery looks completely past his prime and in most scenes he can barely speak let alone act. The one moment when I nearly cried laughing is when he has to take his dog to the vets to be put down, and the dog is leaping around the place full of health and joy.

Bad, Bad, Bad...

Ambitious is the best word I could use to describe this film. After reading a press piece by the director Brady I was curious to see on his tiny budget if in fact he had pulled his concept off. Now yes this film is nothing like films coming out of Hollywood, with the exception of perhaps Falling Down, but it's British and designed to play to a different target audience. It is in fact a real curiosity, the director like Goddard in Alphaville, cleverly uses locations and real documentary footage and wonderful sound design (note the corridor sequence a the radio station) to create a genuine feeling of a city under attack, it is never grandiose and ridiculous, in fact it's so darn right colloquial and pedestrian it at times seems so every day normal that it is subversive in that you don't feel like your really watching a dramatisation, more like a weird documentary which therefore begins to get slowly under your skin. Whilst some of the minor characters are weak and two-dimensional all the leads are convincing to excellent in range. A telemovie in reality but an exceptionally good one and on the budget very impressive. Recommended viewing when it comes around on cable.

First you have this "a-sin" with this movie and another one called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in their review list, then you have this "captain_curthers" with this one and another called Little England.. and surprise surprise..They're all movies from the same company: Boudicca! Then you have a bunch of people with a single review in their list submitting the same review twice here. This is so stupid. If you want to promote your little movies, there's tons of other ways to do it than faking reviews in IMDB. By the way..The Movie is OK. Average. Nothing more. No big deal and definitely not an 8.7 movie, but that's just me being stupid...

After loving the director's previous movie Love Life I was excited to catch his latest, shot on a micro-budget this British drama is incredible. I'll limit my comments about this film to opinions rather than a critical review, as there are many people, none on this site obviously, who are much more knowledgeable and qualified to give an educated critique. I just felt it deserved another positive comment to counter the many negative ones, it seems like the director Ray Brady has a hate campaign from some dispossessed individual intent in damming this original and inspired piece...which I don't really understand and can't explain except to attribute it to ignorance. If you read production notes on the film, you'll realize the writer and director purposely used hand-held cameras to heighten audience tension and to convey a certain sense of realism and to be less intrusive...i.e., not encroach on the actors performances; just acting as a passive observer. In my mind this is brilliance, especially for such an intense, emotionally charged film where capturing certain things on film can only be done a certain way once and numerous camera and lighting setups would constantly interrupt the creative flow. I guess if you don't enjoy a film, you're not very likely to read production notes or check out the films website to learn about how it was made. So for that reason, you can forgive the ignorance of those who commented on how bad it was for childish, superficial reasons rather than making valid intelligent points. If you found it difficult to follow, you might want to stick to less "artsy" fare that doesn't make you think and leaves your brain feeling mushier than when you came into the theatre. This film is emotionally driven, the story is carried forward by the characters and their situations rather than a structured plot. If you insist on linear story telling and can't open your mind to something a little more abstract, you'll have a hard time with this one. In my opinion any movie that evokes such a strong visceral and emotional reaction, be it tears or laughter or even anger is certainly worth seeing. The performances in Day of the Sirens speak for themselves...both the principle actors are phenomenal, Saeed Jaffrey and ESPECIALLY Rik Mayall blew me away. I always thought of him as a great comic actor; the feelings he can exhibit with a facial expression or even just the look in his eyes sent chills up my spine. Go see it, rent it, whatever...even if you end up not liking it, its worth a try. Very British, bigger than TV but maybe too small for the big screen (without big names, a sensible realistic budget and a sizeable P&A budget), I was lucky enough to see this at a festival and I highly recommend it though when it is available DVD.

This film is pure rubbish. It was very obviously cheaply made with many cardboard characters. An exception to this is the Spanish couple. Sayeed Jaffrey's acting was also good but I wanted to shake him every time I saw him. He was so wimpish. The ending seemed to me to be 'make up time' in order to make it into a full length film. The film was also inconclusive and should have finished as soon as the killer was caught - not go meandering on inventing more killers and killings. Also London would not have come to a stop in this sort of event - let alone with people blocking all the routes out of the city. The film also jumped scenes too much. Very disappointing!