Jack Said

Yet another cheapo British gangster flick...yawn. This one stars Danny Dyer (surprise!)as a bit of a cockney rebellious rogue..or should that be webellious wogue.

It all seems to take place in a warehouse..even the scenes in someone's flat.The characters have names like "the fixer", "the guvnor" and even the rival gang are called "the other side gang". Its like watching children playing at gangster stories..and about as believable.

Simon Phillips is an unconvincing action hero to say the least and the baddies all have bald heads cockney accents and long black overcoats.

Ashlie Walker overacts but that might because the rest of the cast are so wooden.

I am so so disappointed in this film. This had unbelievably bad acting (much of this blame must go to the director, who, after watching the dailies, must have seen what i saw? I say this because the actors (some of whom i've seen in other films - Terry Stone was quite good in Rise Of The Footsoldier) are not bad but the acting was. The lead character is too porky to be a convincing lead man in this type of role and the female gangster's 'I'm from Lahndon, me' accent was atrocious. The continuity errors were pretty outstanding too with photos being put into one pocket, only to miraculously appear in another, minutes after receiving it. I have sadly had to give this a one star rating as it's a case of been there seen that, but executed in a much much better way.

While scoring the film a 2 I will say that it does however not stink as much as that score would suggest, its just that having sat through this banal attempt at noir (which is best left to the Americans)I cannot rate it any higher while I still have the pathetically unrealistic female lead characters cartoonish unconvincing nut job still in my head.

The lead character is also a little...no....a lot on the unbelievable side as are all the characters...in fact...maybe this should have been made as a cartoon.

It is cheap, nasty, embarrassingly bad in places, maybe the only redeeming feature is the score.

I am sure that the film will have some appeal with 14 year olds who stumble over it but really the poor acting and ridiculous dialogue coupled with the slap inducing 'acting' of the lead female character means this should be out on DVD very soon......

Maybe I should rate it 1.

Apparently JACK SAID is the middle part of a trilogy, although after watching this misfire I have to say I'm in no hurry to watch the other instalments. This is Cockney gangster film-making at its very worst, a tired mess of a storyline propping up a film chock-full of bad acting and worse.

The lead actor here, Simon Phillips, is undoubtedly the worst thing about this production. Watching this chubby guy wandering around attempting to do 'presence' and 'attitude' is frankly an embarrassment. His supposedly quick-witted humour is even worse, and I was hoping one of the other characters would lamp him before long. Needless to say that they never do.

The narrative is all over the place. Danny Dyer features heavily as a friend of the lead, but is off the screen for long periods of time and doesn't really contribute much when he's on it. Instead we get the usual low-rent gangster hokum nonsense, and whoever decided to put Ashlie Walker as the main villain needs their head examined; an average episode of HOLLYOAKS would be a better fit, I think. At least David O'Hara has the sense to only appear in a scene or two of this nonsense.

Interesting that those reviewing this negatively seem completely unaware of the original and that any confusion only arises from not knowing this and not having seen the original.

As for unbelievable characters...well that's a first isn't it. No movie has ever had characters that one doesn't come across in real life. (/sarcasm)

I'm not sure it was worth a prequel, although a couple of things from the original were explained so it had its uses, not least seeing the relationship with Erin and having a better understanding of her reaction when 'Peanut' re-entered her life in the first one.

Altogether, not a bad follow up to the original.

I'm keen to see what the third one offers.