Jack Said

The crime films from UK from the nineties till now have always, at ninety percent, deceived me, because of bad directing, bad acting, bad scripts. Forget LONG GOOD FRIDAY, GET CARTER, ROBBERY. Guy Ritchie was one of those who are responsible of this situation; Ritchie himself more or less under Quentin Tarantino's influence. But from time to time, you have tough, rough "faces", such as the likes of Craig Fairbrass, Ray Winstone, characters who enhance the interest of those genuinely lame movies. Here, for this movie, I will be honest, I was bored from the very beginning. However, a dark, gloomy, bleak ending can please me, and let me forget the below average quality of those crime dramas.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Undercover cop Jack Adleth (Simon Phillips) is deep into the world of gangland London and has formed a bit too close a relationship with Nathan (Danny Dyer) a loose cannon crook who steals quite a bit of money from gang boss's daughter Natalie (Ashlie Walker.) When he's interrogated for information by Natalie who thinks he's helping hide Nathan, Jack ends up making 'amends' by being Natalie's puppet, performing whatever gangland chore she wants. But a blossoming relationship with Nathan's sister provides the only shining light in his increasingly grim life as everything builds up to end in chaos.

The 'graphic novel' craze arrives straight to DVD, with a project that's been glammed up like one of the more successful entries, Sin City. In parts it tries to capture the film noir feel a lot of these movies try to capture but the outcome feels more pretentious than successful. Sadly, Jack Said just isn't exciting or tense enough to work. While it's all done competently enough, the story feels wavey and all over the place and just doesn't leave the impression it could have. Such a shame considering the talent involved, including Dyer, Phillips and familiar face Terry Stone in a supporting role. And I've only just learned it's actually a sequel, which only means I can only wonder what came before it. **

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.

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.

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.