wow, the stereotypes

Rating: 1/10 (24 May 2001)

surely in the history of films there can never have been any greater collection of stereotypes in a single film. no opportunity has been missed to come up with characters such as 'Nick the Greek' and Hatchett Harry. In england we complained about what mel gibson chose to do in his awful awful films of braveheart and patriot but we seem to be quite happy to let someone british do the same thing. i suppose that i should feel grateful that noone from birmingham was in it, we would have been portrayed as having a broad accent and being thick no doubt.
before anyone accuses me of having a humour bypass, yes i know that this is intentional. i know that they are cardboard cutout villains but that really is no excuse for having a cardboard cutout script. never before have i watched an entire film in which every line appeared to be written down before it was spoken. everything was delivered as though it was all some little in joke that we should all find funny. and i agree with one of the earlier reviewers, vinnie jones CANNOT act. he was in good company here however, since nobody in this film.
it appears that this is no-more than a remake of the 'Italian Job' except without a few things, like the 60's style, noel coward, the script, the acting oh, but we were at least rewarded with not one person being michael caine, but at least 6 people trying to be him. only they all failed. badly.
this really is the film that launched a thousand british gangster films, they have all been bad. but in that sense they have lived up to imitation being the most sincere form of flattery. for the british readers of this, to me this was like watching an extended episode of 'only fools and horses' with more guns and swearing. pitiful and grotesquely overhyped.