Cold Fish

"Cold Fish" is a low-budget made for video/TV thriller that delivers with an interesting story about some underground video artists who exhibit people being killed at stuffy cocktail parties. A young "wannabe" reporter has to penetrate and expose the ring. The concept is kind of out there but it was an enjoyable film if you like B genre thrillers where villains are unmistakably villains. Potential cult favorite!

A movie with excellent production value and strong performances, especially from the lead actor. I must say that while this is no Hollywood Blockbuster, it is one of those rare British films that looks like it could have been made in the States.

I had the unfortune to see one of the incarnations of this film (I hear there are many). From start to finish it is bad. The story has been done a million times and a million times better. The main characters are awful. I didn't really care too much for the lead. I wanted him to be caught, plus he was too old for the part. The villians where so hammy. I don't know where Naida's accent came from. The land of "I'll make it up as I go along". Was there a director on set? I think not! And to add to all this the film is overlit (well in the version I saw it was). They was an UFO (eg. Massive Bright Light) just landed in a dark country lane, a building which had it's own shadow in the sky, and a man working a computer monitor, who should of been wearing a wielder's mask. I imgaine that this film will be expelled to straight to video hell. But learn from my mistake and avoid when possible.

Let's get one thing straight from the start: THIS IS A ROTTEN MOVIE! I know because I'm one of the few people to have seen it, one of the few that will ever see it and because I know a lot of people who worked on it and had to hear their horror stories about how bad the shoot was.

OK, but a bad film shoot experience doesn't necessarily mean a bad end product so I'll stick to JUST the movie review. First of all, it's not a disturbing film because of the material: You hardly see any of the "execution" footage and the characters are so laughable and unconvincing you don't find the premise convincing either. The plot of execution footage for art was the plot of an old episode of "Doomwatch" back in the early 70's. Just rip off Doomwatch, no one will notice..... The script is also littered with inappropriate swear words in the wrong places, much like Spock's "they're not the hell your whales" line in Star Trek IV. "If you think the f*** you can sleep with my wife..." And they try to add a love triangle/quartet plot in there which is frankly, the f***, is hard to believe...as if any of the main characters could find each other attractive.

I mentioned the characters and unconvincing characters are made worse by having inept acting. It's saying something when the two best performances come from "cameos" from Christopher Biggins and Rose Marie. The supposedly "sinister" couple are straight from an amateur dramatics company with the least threatening villain since the con man from "Bodger and Badger" (the gun up the bottom scene raises many unintentional laughs) making threats in a totally wooden delivery. Oh, speaking of wooden, I forgot to mention Jon-Paul Gates. What is with his accent? It's high pitched, whiny and somewhere between the West Country and the land of the Chipmunks. He's supposed to be a virile, dedicated newshound and sex machine and yet....with his strangulated accent and tendency to go cross eyed when he's concentrating, I end up trying to curb my laughter.

The lighting is also all over the place...massively overlit for the most part and with smoke machines pouring out pointless smoke effects through white light to give it that 80's Duran Duran video look. Only it doesn't quite pull it off. I say doesn't quite but I really mean to say it overshoots it and crash lands in a burning, twisted mess.

It's a shame they're not making any more episodes of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 because it's prime fodder for them. Oh, and Dave 777 from London really likes this film so much he's written 3 different reviews of it! And 3 people have voted this movie a 10! And the director's first name is David...wow, what a coincidence.

Well, I just rented 'Cold Fish' from Blockbuster, being in the mood for something edgy and slightly disturbing. Did it live up to this promise? Well, not really. The first problem is the acting. From the outset, the standard is generally poor overall, however I found the characters of Jo (Alex, the lead's ex-junkie girlfriend) and Jon Henley (one of the baddies) the most distracting. Both actors are very wooden and their line delivery is very stilted; I started hoping Jo might go back on the drugs if it might deliver a bit of emotion in her performance! Other reviewers have criticised the lead actor Jon-Paul Gates (Alex), and, whilst it was hardly Oscar-winning, I didn't find him too off-putting.

The second problem was the supposedly shocking and edgy subject matter. Well, maybe I'm acclimatised to this sort of thing, but it seemed no more risky than watching the BBC evening news. Yes, they used archive clips of genuine executions and disasters; but these have been played a hundred times over already on TV and in documentaries, and their use in a film seemed nothing more than repetitive. By the end I was wondering what content was supposed to justify the 18 rating of the film.

Overall, the plot is interesting enough to sustain you for an hour and a half, and whilst the denouement is rather predictable, it's not that bad a film; just a bit lacking in places and severely restricted by the clearly very low budget.