FlashCallahan Two best girlfriends living in London suddenly find themselves battling wits with seasoned criminals when they decide to blackmail the culprits of a bank heist in their neighbourhood rather than reporting the crime to the police.Refusing to be played by this new competition and give up the demanded £1 million, the leaders of the gang of robbers decide to start playing dirty tricks, threaten violence and counterfeit money in an effort to throw the two women off course.......This is one of those films that I remember being advertised at the cinema, being on there for a week and disappearing without a trace. Ten years on and it pops up on sky movies at an ungodly hour.An undeserved failure when released, one feels that this suffered due to the fact that it looked too much like a 'Lock, Stock' rip off, which at the time were a dime a dozen. so i guess the public steered clear, which is a shame because despite all it's flaws, it's a very entertaining film thanks to the energy given by McCormack. Driver plays the straight woman to her mad woman and gets sidelined in the proceedings, just looking very pretty.Plans go wrong and get worse, and the film is ably supported by some great comic talent, good settings and Danny Dyer, when he wasn't an annoying cockney villain.The leads are ferocious and give the film their all, and one feels that this wouldn't have worked be it two other actresses. If you can find this gem anywhere, watch it, it's a cracking little movie.

timsmith37 The direction from Mel Smith is pedestrian at best, and the plot falls between two stools, being neither farcical nor plausible. Rather than being swept up in events, the female protagonists doggedly pursue a reckless course of action without adequate motivation. The cartoon violence, in which despite hails of bullets no-one actually gets killed, contributes to the lack of edge. We never really care about the heroines, because we never feel they are actually in any danger. A further problem is Mary McCormack, who just does not have the comic chops to carry off the demands placed on her. One would have hoped in any case that British cinema had got beyond the point of importing Hollywood C-listers in the forlorn hope of sales across the Pond. It might have been interesting to see what a talented British comedienne, such as Jane Horrocks or Sally Phillips, could have done with the role. The jolie laide Minnie Driver puts in an acceptable performance in a less demanding role, without doing anything to suggest that a career in comedy lies before her. Michael Gambon lends some much needed menace as a camp East End gangster, and Kevin McNally and Len Collin astutely play it straight as the heavies, but for laughs the film relies on the comic coppers, Mark Williams, as the acerbic inspector, and Kevin Eldon as his property price obsessed sergeant. Other familiar Brit faces, such as Hugh Bonneville, Paul Bown and Julian Wadham, do the best they can with blink-and-you'll-miss-them cameos. It is harmless enough way to pass an hour and a half, and will raise the occasional smile, but you will find yourself easily distracted.

Boba_Fett1138 This is a movie that is made in complete comedy style and is also being directed by comedy-man Mel Smith. Yet this is a movie that just has no laughs in it and it's as if they even did tried hard enough.It's of course a movie with a very simple thin story, that also on top of that is an highly unlikely one, even for comedy standards. The way the entire movie progresses is also rather predictable, which makes this a very little uninteresting and unoriginal movie to watch. It's of course not a movie to take serious in the first place but in that case the movie should had had some more comedy and entertainment in it, which it just simply hadn't. Instead it also tries to be more moralistic, which often is an annoying approach for any comedy. Mel Smith obviously has some comical talent but he yet still needs to proof himself as a good comedy movie director.Problem is also its two main characters. They are being presented in this movie as strong, smart, independent women but yet they do all these stupid things. So something is wrong here with the approach. And no offense but lets be honest here for a moment, can you at least name 5 good movies that has 2 female characters as the movie's main leads? It's just something that rarely ever works out successfully. especially when you have a movie with a non-serious approach. Females in comical roles also always tend to overact more than males in the same type of roles. This often works as sort of annoying, even though this movie is still bearable with its acting, thanks to the professional acting by Minnie Driver and Mary McCormack, who unfortunately just weren't given a better script to work with.Also the supporting cast is a good one with actors such as Kevin McNally, Mark Williams and Michael Gambon in it. They still also give the movie some extra flair but you can debate about it if most of their roles were actually really necessary for the movie at all.It's a movie that has the right style, uses the right actors but yet just doesn't work out as a good and successful enough comedy. The movie seriously lacks laughs, which is especially disappointing for a British comedy and could had used a more clever and originally written script and possibly a different director at the helm.4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

gridoon This movie starts out unremarkable, but it gets better, so stick with it. It is alternately silly (mostly in the first and last 15 minutes) and edgy (in the middle), but if you can ignore the various implausibilities (why would such a well-organized and highly professional team of robbers have such a moron as their lookout in the first place?) it's fun, with engaging performances particularly by Minnie Driver and Kevin McNally (who does the right thing by playing his role straight). In any case, it is much better than the very similar and mean-spirited "Beautiful Creatures" from the same year. (**1/2)