lamps

District 9 was as good a laugh as I would ever wish to have.

Wikus Van De Merwe is an absolute icon.

The first part of the movie is so funny, I almost wet my pants.

Prawns, cat food, Nigerians, high tech weapons, I loved every minute of the imagery.

Unfortunately the movie then gradually degenerates into real time crash bang special effects stuff.

But hey don't let that put you off.

It remains pretty good to the end.

I like prawns.

I empathised with this film the moment I heard the yapping dog.

Many years ago, with seven iron in hand and with malice aforethought, I once approached the malevolent little flea bag that used to live across the road. It's incessant yapping had driven me to the brink of insanity. As I did so, club raised, the animal cowered, it's tail between it's legs it frantically scratched at it's front door. It sensed it's demise. It was so pathetic I couldn't do the deed. I failed. It needed to be dead but I couldn't do it.

"Keeping Mum" was one of the many of options on cable tonight. It wasn't an obvious choice until I noticed Maggie Smith in the cast. To see her perform again, I would endure the risk of cringing to Rowan Atkinson on the big screen.

As it turned out, Atkinson just acted well, Swayze was on Donnie Darko form and Maggie Smith was just as magnificent as ever in a role so typically easy for her.

To Grace, the problems were obvious and the solutions no less so.

This movie is easy to watch, nostalgic English country village life combined with "Death Wish". What more can you ask for?

Grace mercifully did the deed to the yapping dog. To her further credit she also did it's more deserving owner.

Perfecto.

We Brits are suckers for Brit gangster flicks. You make 'em, we watch 'em. Good or bad we want to love 'em. Nostalgic reminders of when the bad guys did their thing and left the rest of us alone. London lunatics were glamorous in those days. I know that, you know that and so did the producers of this tripe.

Dan Aykroyd lookalike meets Good fellas, meets Carry on Abroad and what have we got? The Business.

To comment on this film would be like counting the holes in a colander.

By chance or not, Sexy Beast has just been shown on Channel 4 as a reminder that a film of this genre can be good if it at least had a story to go with it's dirty mouth.