Londinium (2001)

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Director:

Mike Binder

Writer:

Mike Binder (written by)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot Keywords:

Independent Film

Cast

Mike Binder	...	Ben Greene
Colin Firth	...	Allen Portland
Mariel Hemingway	...	Carly Matthews Portland
Irène Jacob	...	Fiona Delgrazia
Stephen Fry	...	Nigel Steele (Therapist)
Jack Dee	...	Glen
Stephen Marcus	...	Davey
Christopher Lawford	...	Davis
Michael Meader	...	Sitcom Husband
David Reid	...	Assistant Director
Fabien Riggall	...	Sitcom Son
Gordon Sterne	...	Color of My Life Actor
Kerry Appleyard	...	Ben's Assistant
Tony Allen	...	Rabbi
Michael Deaton	...	Minister

Also Known As:

Four Play (Australia) (Pay-TV title) (UK)
Fourplay (UK) (USA)

MPAA:

Rated R for language and sexual content.

Runtime:

87 min

Country:

USA | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:M | UK:15 | Iceland:12 | Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London, England, UK

Company:

Greentrees Films

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Creating 'The Upside of Anger' (2005) (V)

A flopped and unconvincing attempt at humour with weak characters and dialogue

Carly Portland is the American star of British sitcom Tetford Gate produced by her husband Allen Portland. Ratings are falling so they bring in American writer Ben Greene. With time Ben falls for and marries the shows stunning French make-up artist Fiona Delgrazia. However it is not long before the feelings Ben has for Carly start to cause his relationship with Fiona to suffer. Meanwhile, he notices that Fiona and Allen are also getting close. Thus starts several years of relationship twists and turns between the four people.

I'm not entirely sure where to start with this film. On the surface it is some sort of romantic comedy but it doesn't really have much in it that makes for convincing "love" or indeed anything that I would describe as being all that funny. The end result is a film that never once engaged me and just came across as mistakenly thinking itself to be funnier and smarter than it actually was. So it moves along with dialogue that it cannot maintain and a confidence that it does not deserve to have. The fault for this must rest almost totally with writer and director Mike Binder. He has written characters that are not easy to relate to or understand or indeed even to like. The quartet of characters are poorly developed and they seem to do things for the sake of it; I'm not referring to their actions as people driven by lust (who can ever apply logic to such things) but specifically things like the fights outside pubs, which seemed to drop in from another film or be an idea that Binder had but had nobody working with him able to just say "you know what? this doesn't work").

As a result the film just flops long in a series of "ideas" without any real cohesion or reason to stick with it. The cast struggle and it shows. Binder himself seems to be under the illusion that he has written a modern relationship drama that will make him this generation's Woody Allen and as an actor he comes over like he knows it. It is a weak performance and he grated on me throughout. Firth is not as bad but just seems totally unsure of who he is playing. Hemingway is OK while Jacob is sexy as a presence but poor as a narrator. Small turns from Fry, Dee, Marcus and a few other well known faces do nothing really as they lack the material to work with.

Overall then a poor romantic comedy. The characters are poor and the actors cannot work with them or their dialogue as a result. The story and lives are unconvincing and there is not a spark of inspiration or wit to be had across the whole thing. I had never heard of this film before I recorded it a few weeks ago – now I understand why.