51st State (Retail)
Allan Ogg takes a look at the DVD release of 51st State starring Samuel L Jackson and Robert Carlyle. He finds an enjoyable enough film but also a comedy that is very lacking in laughs.
American chemist Elmo McElroy (Samuel L. Jackson) decides to retire from the illegal drug business so he burns his bridges, literally, with L.A. drug supremo "The lizard" (Meat Loaf) and hops over the pond to try and sell his new designer drug to a Liverpool crime boss Durant (Ricky Tomlinson). The drug, called POS 51, is reputedly 51 times more powerful than anything previously created and he's hoping the $20 million he's asking for will set him up nicely for the rest of his life.
However, when he's met at the airport by Durant's man, Felix de Souza (Robert Carlyle), an American hating scally who's only interest seems to be getting to see Liverpool play Manchester United, you just know nothing is going to go smoothly.
When the deal with Durant is bollixed by an assassination attempt by The Lizard, they try to do business with another Merseyside dealer called Iki (Rhys Ifans) while trying to avoid another rival drug gang, the assassin (Emily Mortimer) and a corrupt police force.
Video/Audio
Presented in 2.35:1 Anamorphic widescreen, the picture is pretty good. It seemed slightly grainy in places but not enough to detract from the film. The soundtrack is available in Dolby 2.0 Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround or DTS 5.1 Surround and, although I can't see why the movie would warrant so many sound options, it sounded okay.
Review
The main thing you notice about Elmo McIlroy is that he's a big black guy that likes to wear a kilt and tote around a set of golf clubs. Neither play much part in the movie other than, I suspect, they were written in to lure Samuel L. Jackson to the role as he really liked the kilt idea and fancied using a golf club as a kind of samurai sword. He actually hospitalised one of the extras with the club so at he got his moneys worth from the idea.
The cast are excellent although Jackson sails through it without putting in too much effort except to look really cool. Robert Carlyle plays the crooked scally Felix pretty well and Sean Pertwee is pretty good as the bent copper looking to score a percentage. Rhys Ifans does a reasonable job as a somewhat outrageous underworld gangster and Meat Loaf provides a required American accent as The Lizard. Emily Mortimer just doesn't seem the type to be a hired killer but it was one way of getting some love interest into a fairly exclusively male movie.
The story line is fairly plausable but none of the characters are in the slightest bit likeable so I never felt like I cared if they lived or died, who got the money or just went back to being scum.
Extras
Audio Commentary with writer Stel Pavlou and co-producer Mark Aldridge. These two obviously clicked and the result is far better than watching the movie itself.
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Making of 51st State - a short, seven minute featurette on the making of the film with some behind the scenes shots and snippets from the interviews, etc.
Production Featurettes - Four fairly forgettable short, and I mean short, featurettes - How Do You Become a Scouser?, Michael Stark, Portrait of a Thespian, Who The Hell Is Stel Pavlou? and Dug, A Script Supervisor on the Edge.. The whole lot lasts under 10 minutes.
Interviews with Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Carlyle, Emily Mortimer and Ronny Yu. Basically short chats that total only around 11 minutes all together.
Picture Gallery - Not a set of stills to click through but two minutes of, well stills slowly passed by the camera.
Trailer - the obligatory cinema trailer.
Overall
It's watchable but there aren't nearly enough laughs for something billed as a comedy. After listening to the writer and director I got the feeling they were aiming it for cult status like Pulp Fiction or Trainspotting. Sorry, it just doesn't have the class.
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