Rancid Aluminium

This film is about a man's life going wrong. His business is failing, and he cannot impregnate his wife despite multiple attempts.

The plot is complete chaos. It simply does not make sense. In fact, nothing in the film makes sense. The story is so poorly told that I simply could not understand it. It is a shame, because the sets and costumes are done well, and are visually stimulating enough. The shots are well composed throughout the film. However, these redeeming features still cannot make up for the bad plot and poor story telling. I am amazed by the big names who agreed to star in this film. It is such a waste of their talents. This film is very bad. Avoid it!!

Pete Thompson's father dies and leaves him the whole business. However his friend and business accountant, Sean Deeny, reveals that the business is in major trouble with the taxman. To get past the problem Sean and Pete go into business with the Russian mafia. However Pete has other plans to get rich, while Sean just wants to have kids and have a quiet life.

In the past few years the spate of British gangster films has been very much one of copies of `Lock Stock' etc. Some of them manage to be different and clever enough to work, but many are poor copies that lack any style or substance. Unfortunately for my evening, Rancid Aluminium falls within the latter category. The plotting is very poor, it is rambling and has nothing resembling tension or gripping narrative. In essence it is a short film with all the scenes stretched out to longer than they can sustain. The end result is a loose mess of a plot that doesn't really hang together at all.

The film can't manage the style of Lock, Stock – instead it feels forced, maybe this was the director's first film – it certain feels like he is trying to impress someone with old ideas that are fresh to him. The script also fails to really bring any characters out, instead they are pretty much all flat clichés. Now, I know the same is true of those in Lock, Stock and Snatch, but at least these had some redemption by being funny and tongue in cheek at points. Here that is pretty much not the case with any of the characters. Ifans makes good effort but is hampered by the script, he is the best of a poor bunch. Fiennes is awful, no sooner had he got the perfect career springboard in `Shakespeare in Love' then he does this. His accent is awful and his overall performance is weak. Fitzgerald, Frost and Behr all just line up to be naked and have their sex scenes. It is slightly degrading to see the film be so unimaginative that it just has regular sex scenes to keep the audience interested. Berkoff and Allen are hammy and pretty pointless.

Overall this film has few if any redeeming qualities. Any it does have are because it copied it from other, better films. It is full of nonsense that the director mistook for style or modern wit. A real waste of time and effort.

I'm often amused, and sometimes amazed, at the negative reviews given for films which I enjoyed, and where I think the reviewers missed the point of the whole thing. This was roundly criticized by several reviewers who evaluated it entirely as an attempt at serious action/drama, and overlooked the satire and tongue-in-cheek nature of the whole thing. The story was not only unbelievable, but fantastic. The characterization were shallow because they are caricatures; the bumbling son and heir, his avaricious and disloyal "friend" and partner who engages in an absurdly elaborate scheme to gain control of his business; the type cast Russian "Mafioso," their "femme fatale," whose bizarre actions go beyond the absurd. I think the scenario where our hero tries to establish an airtight alibi by producing a condom with DNA material from both him and her (despite the fact he could have produced the real thing a few hours earlier) is one of the funniest sequences I've ever seen in a movie. Lighten up out there! You missed a very funny movie.

This is a film that had a lot to live down to . on the year of its release legendary film critic Barry Norman considered it the worst film of the year and I'd heard nothing but bad things about it especially a plot that was criticised for being too complicated

To be honest the plot is something of a red herring and the film suffers even more when the word " plot " is used because as far as I can see there is no plot as such . There's something involving Russian gangsters , a character called Pete Thompson who's trying to get his wife Sarah pregnant , and an Irish bloke called Sean . How they all fit into something called a " plot " I'm not sure . It's difficult to explain the plots of Guy Ritchie films but if you watch any of his films I'm sure we can all agree that they all posses one no matter how complicated they may seem on first viewing . Likewise a James Bond film though the plots are stretched out with action scenes . You will have a serious problem believing RANCID ALUMINIUM has any type of central plot that can be cogently explained

Taking a look at the cast list will ring enough warning bells as to what sort of film you'll be watching . Sadie Frost has appeared in some of the worst British films made in the last 15 years and she's doing nothing to become inconsistent . Steven Berkoff gives acting a bad name ( and he plays a character called Kant which sums up the wit of this movie ) while one of the supporting characters is played by a TV presenter presumably because no serious actress would be seen dead in this

The only good thing I can say about this movie is that it's utterly forgettable . I saw it a few days ago and immediately after watching I was going to write a very long a critical review warning people what they are letting themselves in for by watching , but by now I've mainly forgotten why . But this doesn't alter the fact that I remember disliking this piece of crap immensely

Just before I saw this film, I met James Hawes at a book signing. He seemed pretty upbeat about the release of the film however reading an interview with him later he knew at the time that the film was rubbish.

An brief, Rancid Aluminium is a good book, it followed on from his debut (White Merc With Fins) which was probably the best book I have read for a long time. But when he came to make the film he rewrote the book to fit the character of Rhys Ifans which was a big mistake.

The old main character was a suburban, early 30s guy, they changed this to a twenty something urbanite and the whole premise for the story was broken.

Add to this some major twists in the plot which have no explanation, holes you could drive a truck through and and ending which leaves you thinking 'what the f**k happened there then..?'.

Also they made a major mistake adding in a scene to get the only funny bit of the book (the fight on the motorway) into the film which only seemed to disjoint the film even more.

I was a big fan of James Hawes books, but this film (and also his latest book) have really dampened this enthusiasm. I only hope that his other book (WMWF) which is being shot now continues and makes a better picture than this.