London Kills Me

I picked it up at the video store about 10 years ago, because the title caught my eye. I was very surprised to find that the movie was very entertaining; with serious bits, but oh such funny bits too. I loved the wittiness of it. It took me a year before I was able to locate a place to purchase it. I have it in my library now and watch it every so often. I LOVE "Clint Eastwood! Justin Chadwick is perfect as Clint Eastwood.

The characters are very real, and you truly begin to feel for each one of them. Even the supporting cast gives such life to their characters. Of course Steve McIntosh is great as Muff Diver, McIntosh never disappoints with his acting.

I've only seen this movie once, but I was impressed how important a pair of shoes can become. This film lets us view life from a totally different, strange view. A view of life, as a drug addict sees it, but somehow is not really unpleasant. The film has got the same quality as films like "Trainspotting" or books as "Camden Girls": we are able to laugh about things actually being really tragic. What a pity that this film is known to so few people...

See this movie! Sure, the lives of the characters in it are terribly sad, but the only grim sort of sadness I felt, watching this, was due to the overwhelming lack of such richness in most American films. We're talking actors who throw themselves into their parts, rather than ride the oily wave of celebrity. We're talking a script that tackles, with only minute concessions to gimmickry (at times the playfulness crosses over into winsomeness), the true complexity of human beings. Clint, Muffdiver, and Sylvie are multi-faceted, unfolding (but only so far--no easy answers here) characters. The end's a bit tidy, but this remains a minor qualm in light of the film's rewards.

I found this film to be very touching and intelligent in the subtlety of language and human interaction it portrays. It's not overwhelming, as many films with drug/street culture themes are, but, rather, very intent on describing the emotional nuances of the characters' personalities. Unlike more popular films which describe a downward spiral and general glamour of a pathetic existence, this film concentrates on the human evolutionary condition into something better than one was yesterday. The main character is such a sweet personality, that, unlike "Trainspotting," et.al., I really felt emotionally involved in the story, rather than just watching it out of a misguided curiosity as to what it would be like to be an addict. Overall, London Kills Me has just the right mix of "style," drama, and comedy to make it a film I'd recommend for anyone to watch more than once.

If I'm to like a movie, I need to care about the lead characters and what happens to them. In this waste-pod of a film, I found myself hoping that they would all die in the end. None of the characters are people that you'd ever want to meet, they all made me sick. If not for a few nude scenes, I would have given this wretched movie a 1.