London Underworld

Yikes! What a complete and total waste of film. It's a bore fest. I'm not really sure why so many directors these days think that slow means dramatic.

It means borrr-ring!

You know the plot -- tuff guys with a fight club get involved with these businessmen and somehow vampires get involved!

It's an amazingly dumb story line made worse by the slowest exposition on the planet.

I lost major interest about half way through and so will you. Avoid it like the plague.

Not only does ex-East End wrong 'un turned legit entrepreneur Freddy 'Dead Cert' Frankham (Craig Fairbrass) lose his best friend in a bare-knuckle smack-down with ruthless head-case Yuvesky (Dave Legeno), but he also loses his livelihood, having unwisely staked his business (strip club The Paradise, which somehow boasts one of the best rooftop views in London) in a wager against Romanian gangster Dante Livenko (Billy Murray). More than a little miffed, Freddy and his dodgy mates decide to seek retribution for their pal's demise and take back what was theirs, only to discover that Livenko and his thugs are vampires.

Brit gangster/vampire flick Dead Cert hardly explores new ground, essentially being a fairly low-budget Cockney retread of 90s Tarantino/Rodriguez genre mash-up From Dusk Till Dawn. But despite scoring low in the originality department, the film still manages to be reasonably entertaining enough nonsense for its duration thanks to its colourful collection of criminals performed by a veritable Who's Who of affordable London actors. The film's splendid cast includes Dexter Fletcher and Jason Flemyng, counts no less than three ex-Eastenders stars amongst its number (Murray, Fairbrass, and Ricky Grover), and also features the likes of Steven Berkoff, Perry Benson ('Dad' from Mum & Dad), and Danny-bloody-Dyer, making this film more Cockney than a pearly king and queen eating jellied eels in Bethnal Green. Watching these guys do their thing is a blast.

Where the film doesn't work quite so well is in pulling off the awkward genre switchover from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels style gangster shenanigans to vampire flick: the change comes way too late in the day and is all too sudden, leaving viewers no time to adjust to the shift and giving the film little opportunity to make the most of its horror aspect. Other negatives include a lack of nudity from the busty beauties who work in the Paradise (for a strip club, there ain't much skin on show) and Billy Murray not bothering to adopt a Romanian accent (the makers were obviously so pleased to have him on board they wrote an excuse for this into the script). A few juicy stakings and a unique solution to the vampire problem go some way to compensating for these less than perfect elements in the film's finalé.

This movie wasn't entirely terrible but it certainly won't be embracing my DVD player for quite a while. It semi works as a gangster flick, in brief a rival gang tries to take over an established patch. This has worked in the past and could have possibly worked now. Considering the cast of British stars that appear in it, Craig Fairbrass, jason Flemyng and Dexter fletcher to name a few.

But then... The vampire bit seems to pop up. It feels like they couldn't really pick a decent way for the movie to go and decided it would be a good idea to throw a couple of bloodsuckers in. The culminating scene near the end of the movie becoming like a poor mans from dusk till dawn.

It falls slightly short of a gangster flick and slightly short of a horror flick it's one of those that I'm sure you will be on the fence about. The only real qualm i had with thee movie is billy murray's romanian character... Without a hint of a romanian accent Try the film by all means but don't get your hopes up to high.

A bit like my old school reports, Dead Cert invokes comments such as "Must try harder" or "Can do better" and "Needs to pay more attention."

A London gangster-vampire hybrid, which is a fine idea in itself, Dead Cert is a case of ambition running way ahead of ability in, well, just about every department! So badly do the two concepts fail to meld, or work even on their own individual basis, it makes me wonder what kind of script the film has. Did it even have one or were the cast allowed to busk their way through? There's certainly no sign of firm direction on show here.

Budgetary constraints are obvious, but time and again talent can cover for this if the core elements are present and correct. But where there is no drama or tension, where the characters are so flat as to be thinner than cardboard, then why should the audience care?

DEAD CERT is nothing more than a British rip-off of the ultra-cool vampire flick FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, with the action shifted to London and a cast of mildly familiar faces from British TV rather than big name stars. The biggest, and unfortunately, crippling, problem that DEAD CERT faces is that it was made with a very low budget, meaning the whole thing looks cheap, and also amateurish in places.

One-time hard-man Craig Fairbrass (DARKLANDS) plays a Cockney chap who's ploughed his life savings into opening a new club, only to have it taken over by Romanian gangsters who also happen to be vampires. Don't you just hate it when that happens? As in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, the first half is a typical gangster film while the second is a vampire-heavy set-piece.

Compare this to FROM DUSK TILL DAWN and you'll be disappointed, because it's nowhere near as good. The calibre of the script just isn't there and the special effects are entirely limited. Still, I went in expecting absolutely nothing, and as a result I found myself enjoying this. There are frequent funny moments, and it's great fun seeing all the familiar faces. The attempted additions to the vampire mythology are a hoot - apparently vampires are afraid of dogs and instead of using crucifixes, you only have to have something you have faith in. None of it makes much sense but it is fun.

Chief vampire duties are handed out to EASTENDERS actor and one-time insurance advert man Billy Murray, who perhaps wisely doesn't bother attempting an accent here. There are brief cameos from the likes of Jason Flemyng and Danny Dyer, along with a larger slice of the action from laughable one-time Hollywood star Steven Berkoff, who really does seem to have fallen on hard times. Watch out for THIS IS ENGLAND's Perry Benson and 300's Andrew Tiernan in supporting roles, and a fairly meaty part from the impossible to dislike Dexter Fletcher. Interesting, most of the main stars seem to have doubled up as producers, alongside Martin Kemp, so there's a lot of enthusiasm here; it's just a shame it's not matched by quality.