This is the story of Bella, who woke up one morning and realized she'd had enough. All it took was one rather nasty man to transform her from a meek and mild secretary into a murderous femme... Read allThis is the story of Bella, who woke up one morning and realized she'd had enough. All it took was one rather nasty man to transform her from a meek and mild secretary into a murderous femme fatale.This is the story of Bella, who woke up one morning and realized she'd had enough. All it took was one rather nasty man to transform her from a meek and mild secretary into a murderous femme fatale.
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I only saw this as I was writing a review for a college magazine at the time and thought it would be easier to write about a bad movie than a good one. I didn't realise just how easy it wou ld be. I saw it on a wet afternoon in a mutliplex, and 4 of the 6 people in the cinema walked out. I wish I was one. Awful in every possible respect, if Edison had known that this would happen to his great invention he would have hid the patent. Not out of curiosity, masochism or desperation should you give this a look.
I first saw this film at the cinema and found it quite funny in a sick sort of way. What I liked about it was the British feel to it. The story is a Death Wish type clone (Death Wish also directed by Mr Winner)it has some memorable characters in and also some memorable places from Brighton. If your after a bit of fun and don't mind some sick scenes you may like this. Also this film was banned from video release for a few years back in the mid 90's. There are some scenes cut out from the cinema release, but that does not affect the film in any way. Oh I also liked the soundtrack which suited the film very well. Even by today's standard this film has a dark and moody feel to it and may even find it's very own cult status one day.
A gross and garish movie whose clumsy editing, cheapskate production values and dire lighting are its only memorable features. A lot of acting talent is wasted in this truly execrable work. The director took a powerful, compelling and blackly comic novel and artistically trashed it. Best advice: Forget the film. Read the book.
It's difficult to know if Dirty Weekend finds Michael Winner taking the rise out the urine, or if he genuinely feels he had something to say? And what of Helen Zahavi, author of the novel and in charge of the adaptation to screen here? What's her story - motivations et al? It's quite possibly that Helen and Michael at their respective humane cores were a match made in cinematic heaven, but how come Dirty Weekend just feels dirty, lazy dirty at that, a sort of shock for shocks sake as Zahavi gets to curry favour with the feminist movement and Winner gets to be seedy, with murder death kill and the grotesque thrown in for good measure.
Plot, for what it's worth, has dowdy Bella (Lia Williams) suddenly turn into a sexual vamp over night with a blood lust for offing all men who dare to leer and pester. In Brighton, the place of rock, candy floss and degenerate male members of the human race.
It would have been easy to root for Bella had she at the very least had acquaintances or drinks with some normal men, but it's hard to take seriously a film where every single bloke she meets is either troubled mentally, a sexually deviant, has a penchant for serial killing and etc etc. Even her best friend's husband is a milquetoast who probably should have been on Bella's hit list as well!
Winner achieved everything he hoped for with Dirty Weekend, the critics frothed at the mouth, the British censors sharpened their scissors, and crucially the film became a holy grail of uncut home formats for the intrigued and degenerates. It undeniably was shocking back on release, I mean when the broad sheet newspapers of Blighty are dissecting it frame by frame you know it's a fire-cracker piece of cinema.
Rufus Sewell can be forgiven as this is right at the start of his career (he is edgy, nutty and Anthony Perkins like), same for British legend Sean Pertwee, but what is David McCallum's excuse, Ian Richardson also? That Lia Williams is bold and cheeky with her performance saves the film from stinker hell, it's great to note that she carved out a strong career in British TV and still works today.
Hard to recommend and guaranteed to make you angry, but fair play to Winner, boy did he know how to punch buttons! 5/10
Plot, for what it's worth, has dowdy Bella (Lia Williams) suddenly turn into a sexual vamp over night with a blood lust for offing all men who dare to leer and pester. In Brighton, the place of rock, candy floss and degenerate male members of the human race.
It would have been easy to root for Bella had she at the very least had acquaintances or drinks with some normal men, but it's hard to take seriously a film where every single bloke she meets is either troubled mentally, a sexually deviant, has a penchant for serial killing and etc etc. Even her best friend's husband is a milquetoast who probably should have been on Bella's hit list as well!
Winner achieved everything he hoped for with Dirty Weekend, the critics frothed at the mouth, the British censors sharpened their scissors, and crucially the film became a holy grail of uncut home formats for the intrigued and degenerates. It undeniably was shocking back on release, I mean when the broad sheet newspapers of Blighty are dissecting it frame by frame you know it's a fire-cracker piece of cinema.
Rufus Sewell can be forgiven as this is right at the start of his career (he is edgy, nutty and Anthony Perkins like), same for British legend Sean Pertwee, but what is David McCallum's excuse, Ian Richardson also? That Lia Williams is bold and cheeky with her performance saves the film from stinker hell, it's great to note that she carved out a strong career in British TV and still works today.
Hard to recommend and guaranteed to make you angry, but fair play to Winner, boy did he know how to punch buttons! 5/10
Dirty weekend is a very well made film- as you would expect from Michael Winner. To sum it up, it is basically a feminist version of Death Wish about a woman who gets pushed around, experiences her own powerlessness and one day decides she's had enough. Needless to say that she then spends a weekend with a gun meeting a lot of creeps. Some of ther performances are great. David McCallum as psyohopathic dentist alone is worth watching the film. As always Winner plays effectively with audience by getting us to actually want her to pull the trigger. Of course, it is all black/and white in terms of morals and the likelihood of meeting such an assortment of scumbags in one weekend is not really that big. But all in all the film is well made. What impressed me most was the very effective use of music in the film. I found it remarkable that the French film "Baise Moi" allegedly a feminist masterpiece is a shameless rip off of Dirty Weekend, lifting complete scenbes from Winner's film.
Did you know
- TriviaThe gun shop used in the film was a real shop based in Park Street, St. Albans in Hertfordshire and is still going strong today.
- GoofsAt the country pub when Bella is talking to Mr Brown before he drives away: Bella's shadow on the car shows that the lighting is from the left but in the next shot as Mr Brown drives away the natural shadows are in the opposite direction.
- Alternate versionsAlthough the cinema version was uncut the 1995 video release was cut by 1 min 22 secs by the BBFC to reduce blows from a hammer murder, a man being suffocated with a plastic bag, and suggested shots of oral sex and Bella vomiting during the car park rape scene. The 2006 DVD release features the same cut print.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Film '72: Episode #23.2 (1993)
- How long is Dirty Weekend?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Kirli Tatil
- Filming locations
- Park Street Lane, Park Street, St Albans, Hertfordshire, England, UK(gun shop sequence)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- £10,789,456 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 42 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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