Convinced; that is. This should have been a watchable film and many of the less discerning or less mature in years will probably find it so but there are a lot of features to this movie you wouldn't want, and a lot you would, fail to materialise. The basic premise of the film; that a major gangster who finds himself saved from execution by a million to one coincidence at the hands of a minor small-time loser, would within days, put his whole operation under the command of said loser, is "unlikely". That said small time loser would prove to be, within days, able to outsmart big time crime figures with supposedly years of experience in the field, is "unlikely". That very rich blokes wife, plotting with other rich bloke would finally fall for very poor bloke, is perhaps the least likely of the lot. But I'll live with that as it's a nice thought for we band of "less than" rich brothers. Along the way we are treated to the genre required plethora of four letterisms but combined with no intelligent dialogue at all. The person who conceived this less than adequate action, heist, thriller seems to have set out create a combination of "lock stock" coincidence plotting with "pulp fiction" humanisation of virtue free characters, witness the body removal scene, and failed abysmally on both counts. probably the best scenes were Steven Berkoffs auction of eastern European ( soon to be ) whores with,in one case at least, very English accents and for sheer excitement the first appearance of Beatty Rosen which ranks alongside that of Vanessa Angel in Kingpin as my favourite"woah! maybe this isn't so bad after all" babe moment. However it proceeded to be that bad after all; right up to the predictable, if you've seen "Lock stock and two smoking barrels" ( or even if you haven't really ) ending. The fairly talented cast, were either just going through the motions or let down by script and direction with the notable exceptions of Steven Berkoff who put up a very spirited fight, and sometimes Leo Gregory on the odd occasion his part made sense . Michael Madson I will come to later. Vince Regan and Phil Davis are both talented actors but should have read the script before agreeing, as it was they were both handicapped by it, specifically the lazily written gangster speak and swearing requirement. Phil Davis also seemed to be shot to make him look as small as possible with trousers that appeared two inches too long ( five by US standards ) the result being faintly comical but I couldn't tell if this was deliberate or not. Frankly Noel Coward had way more authority in "The Italian Job". I remain overall a British gangster film fan, but they in turn remain best when well produced, written and directed, without pandering to the preconceived tastes of an American audience and the inclusion of less than interested American "stars". Michael Madson did neither us, nor himself any favours in his lacklustre battle with what was a very poor and token part to start with. I'm gonna classify Beatrice as European due to her upbringing and the fact that she is becoming the female answer to Anthony Quinn as first choice American for playing foreigners. This is no "LSaTSB" and that was in turn no "Get Carter"
Review of The Big I Am
