SMOKING GUNS

by Mark'd Commode

3 out of 10

Release date: 11th September 2017 (DVD premiere)

Director: Savvas D Michael

Cast: Tommy O’Neill, Andreas Karras, Jamie Crew, Daniel Caltagirone, Nicky B, Shezai Fezjo, Jason Duff, Dursun Kuran, Ewen MacIntosh, Terry Scotchmer, Colin Burt Vidler with Mem Ferda and Dexter Fletcher

Writer: Savvas D Michael

Trailer: SMOKING GUNS

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Was Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels really 19 years ago? How many rip-offs have there been? It’s been a little while since the last wanna-bes Diamond Geezers and The Smoke came down the pike, but here we are again.  Sharp Cockney’s, betting shops, chatty gangster, fast patter, no women and deadly Mediterranean and East European mobsters all vying for a piece of the same grift.

UK independent movies have gone down the nick recently, there was a time when me and Joe Pesci II would go to town on a competently made film that had (god forbid) a weak storyline and a lazy script. Nowadays, those films are few and far between and have been elevated in status by the sheer number of unfinished, sloppily made flicks by amateurs and ego-turds taking shortcuts into industry cul-de-sacs for a quick buck- films like this have taken the place of the former.  Nowadays, I find myself congratulating first time filmmakers for simply being able to point a camera straight and light or block a scene well, lucky them.  Smoking Guns, formerly A Punter’s Prayer gains a few points for being a version of what stood for sub-standard shit five years ago. Times have changed and it’s pretty good in comparison to  everything I’ve sat down to watch in the low-budget end of the UK pond. My standards have slipped and they can’t get up.

Set in a betting shop, Jack (TOMMY O’NEILL)  wants to know what it’s like to be a winner. He hangs around a bookies with other no-hopers; Yianni (ANDREAS KARRAS), thicko, Ian (JAMIE CREW) and hyper active estate-agent, Paul (DEXTER FLETCHER – JUDE) hoping to hit that lucky number. For some reason he also needs a broken gun from a dodgy Alabanian gangster called Pippie (SHEZAI FAJKO) who loves to play cards with some Turkish gangsters/restauranteurs next door to the bookies led by Bektesh (MEM FERDA – LONDON HEIST). Unluckily for Jack and the gang, a known coke dealer and hood, Holt (DANIEL CALTIGIRONE – OUTPOST 2) is waiting in the wings to swoop in and heist the winnings. That’s what I think was going on.

There are more red herrings and dead ends here than a coastal council estate, Mem Ferda’s gang play a long card game, shout and fight but they only thread into the main plots very tenuously. Flashbacks and anecdotes add nothing to the story but pad out the running time. Scenes of dialogue run on and on, Tarantino-style, as characters explain their intentions at length with elaborately constructed dialogue. However, it’s oh-so predictable, again, this is stale material. Cheeky, caper, gangster films went out with fluorescent socks – so what we have here is something out of fashion, out of time, out of luck.  I won’t congratulate the makers for actually achieving what seems to be the impossible, nowadays, of making a finished, film-like piece of entertainment, that should be the very least we can expect. It should come as standard. Sadly, despite some spirited performances and committment from a largely unknown (to me) cast, this is old hat. Nothing to see here.

3 out of 10 – Competent, reasonably acted cheeky-chappy gangtser-com of the kind you thought weren’t being made anymore. But here we are again. Tired but far from terrible.

WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?

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