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13 out of 15 people found the following review useful: What the Hell was Firth Thinking...?, 11 December 2004 Author: StacyOnEarth from United States
Mike Binder must have had some kind of seriously serious blackmail-worthy information on Colin Firth. There is no other way to explain why he'd allow himself to complete a single scene in this film without walking right off and calling a lawyer.I only decided to watch this movie because Firth was in it, and hoped for a smart film that would distract me with voyeuristic moments into American-English cross-culturalism. Instead, one improbable scene after another violently attacked my intelligence, as Bender starts an affair with Margeaux Hemingway, who's married to Firth, who falls for Bender's wife. Hemingway and Bender then try to bait their spouses into an affair, which they then regret, compounded by the fact the the spouses fall in love with each other.The consistent nonsense of this film comes from the humanly improbable scenarios, and the pervasive personality disorders of each character with no context whatsoever. Firth apparently is trying to come across as a cuckold, who likes "letting off steam" by violently beating up unsuspecting(?) staff who consistently meet with him after work in a pub. No cops, no witnesses, no suing, no quitting - just violence then "see ya at work tomorrow." Bender is just an idiot writer whose interests, goals, motivations and drive seem to shift schizophrenically in every scene. His wife is a control freak he and Firth can't seem to get over, while Hemingway plays a neurotic narcissist actress that everyone keeps tolerating. The nuttiness of this movie is compounded by the attempt at a romantic ending, which only leaves you dazed, confused and convinced that you will regret having ever donated 2 hours of your life to this movie.In the credits, Binder adds "This Movie is for Dyno, I Love You..." Dyno, if this is representative of Binder's love, then you need to develop an escape plan. And hopefully, you missed the film he dedicated to you.
15 out of 21 people found the following review useful: A Favorite Movie of Mine!, 29 April 2004 Author: Lisa LaFreniere (lisalafreniere1@hotmail.com) from San Diego, California
Mike Binder (Mind of The Married Man) is such a clever writer, and his male perspective of relationships fascinates me. His writing is honest, funny, and ironic. I had to search for this movie on DVD, but the name was changed to FOURPLAY for release in the United States. I think that he really brought something different out in the performances of Mariel Hemingway and especially Colin Firth, as you get to see a different side of him in this film. I love England, and as such, it gives such great scenery and glimpses of different areas of the country and the way it is filmed, you almost feel as though you are walking right alongside them on the streets of London. This movie is very much like a play in that it centers around four main characters, only interspersed with a few other very funny characters. I love it, and if you enjoy any of the people associated with this film, I highly recommend it. It's an incredibly intelligent film, but very funny. I especially love the pub scenes with Colin Firth and Mike Binder....Good stuff!
8 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Loved the scenery, 4 February 2003 Author: morrowmmm from Los Angeles
This is a mishmash. it is attempting to achieve something but since it fails badly it is hard to know what. Is this a light comedy? Is this a Woody Allen take off? God knows...its all over the place but I loved the scenery of London in the summer. I liked the Mind of the Married Man on HBO and was sorry when they cancelled it but this is most peculiar. Possibly a slightly better script and decidedly better directing might have transformed this film ie made it more comprehensible. A bit of editing and the London Tourist Board would love it. But most of it is pretentious crap.
7 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Good way to blow off some steam!, 7 February 2003 Author: mimacdon4 from FT. Lauderdale, FL
I found this a delightful study of relationships. It is a foursome ensemble cast of Colin Firth, Mariel Hemingway, Mike Binder and Irene Jacobs. It begins with Mike Binder arriving in London to work as a writer on set of Carly's (Mariel Hemingway) show that is produced by her husband Allen(Colin Firth). Mike Binder is introduced to makeup artist Fiona (Irene Jacobs) and they start a relationship. Carly and Allen look on to their friends passionate relationship and find something lacking in theirs. Mike Binder, never satisfied, looks to Carly for an affair when a real relationship with Fiona becomes too much work. Allen is more than willing to oblige Mike and dally with Irene and they meet at a country Inn with paper thin walls. Carly and Mike are in the next room confirming the infidelity. Very funny.I also enjoyed the farcical fight scenes with Allen pummeling his chums apologizing all the while continuing to beat the life out of them. The therapist scenes with Stephen Fry are hilarious.
3 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Sub-standard Notting Hill/Bridget Jones fare, 23 June 2004 Author: graham-turnock from London, England
Other than saccharine shots of West London, if that appeals to you, and a lesson in "how not to do it" this film has relatively little to offer. The problem is in the writing. Many scenes are badly written, painfully unfunny - such as the sessions with the Stephen Fry's "labour relations" counselor -, or simply misjudged - the late night pub brawl which seems to be trying to reprise the excellent fight at the end of Bridget Jones' Diary, but looks more like a sick sub-Ritchiesque gangland denouement. To their credit, the actors do a good job with the material they are given. The plot is promising, and somewhere there was a good film in here but one feels that combining the roles of writer, director and lead actor lead to a fatal loss of internal critical tension.
3 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Gorgeous London settings, fitfully amusing Woody Allen imitation, 3 September 2001 Author: EThompsonUMD from Massachusetts
Michael Binder the writer, director, and star of `Londinium' is clearly a Woody Allen wannabe. In my view that's not necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately, this film is so derivative of Allen that one has to wonder why he isn't given due recognition in the credits. Contemporary London is here substituted for Allen's New York of the '70s and '80s. As in several of Allen's films of that period, the cityscape in `Londinium' dominates the film's cinematography, creating an urban tone poem of sorts as well as a sophisticated backdrop for the cross purpose comedy of courtship, sex, and marriage that constitutes the screenplay.`Londinium' even brings back Mariel Hemingway, Woody's high school-aged love-interest in `Manhattan,' for a mid-life redaction of her earlier role. Binder himself seems to be auditioning for a part as `younger Woody' in a future Allen film. His character is a nearly complete borrowing of Woody's classic nebbish/lover/writer persona with a little Paul Reiser verbal inflection mixed in. The other two characters in the film's sexual foursome are played by the always-lovely-to-look at Irene Jacob, who provides the film's voiceover narrative for reasons that are never made clear, and Colin Firth (`Bridget Jones' Diary,' `Shakespeare in Love'), who once again offers up his unique (read: peculiar and off-putting) thuggish/romantic screen presence, taking it so far this time as to beating his friends and associates to a pulp whenever the impulse strikes. Actually, the fight impulse even overtakes the unlikely Ben Greene (the Binder character), producing an upper middle-class `Fight Club' scene that is supposed to be cathartic and funny, but just seems flat and dumb.In addition to the leads, Stephen Fry (`Black Adder') has a very funny minor role as a proper British labor relations counselor who is pressed into unwilling service as a marriage/sex therapist. His scandalized reactions to some rather lurid confessions/accusations bandied by Jacob and Firth are the comic high point of an occasionally amusing, but mainly pretty dull and forgettable film.
5 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Quirky, 23 June 2004 Author: Florence Lawrence from The New Forest
Not a true representation of us Brit's, I do not think, (hope!) but then I am not a Londoner. It's very quirky and has a honest feel in it's style, and some lovely shots of London, beautiful lighting, gives it this dreamy glow.Bit of a fore runner for love actually this film.Colin Firth fan's, looking for Mr Darcy fans will be disappointed, more the Fever Pitch character here probably, but he plays it brilliantly as usual.It is a really modern, deep look at relationships, which could tee of some great conversations.Also very funny in places, Stephen Fry is so funny as the therapist and Jack Dee is his usual wonderful self, although it is strange to see him sharing a stage. Definitely worth a watch this film.
4 out of 7 people found the following review useful: Unbelievably bad story!, 5 December 2003 Author: darkteilani from Munich, Germany
This movie is just crap! It's pointless, it isn't funny.I just finished watching and write this in very fresh memory of this disappointing experience.Not even Colin Firth manages to rescue some part of it. And since I'm a complete Firth-Lunatic, that's a weighty conclusion.I can't even finally decide which movie is worse: The Playmaker or Londinium. Playmaker had at least the comfort of some very hot scenes under the shower which saved some of it. But this movie lacks any comfort of any kind.And since in Germany you can only get it dubbed you cannot even listen to his beautiful voice but get this silly boyish dubbing voice.The only slightly amusing scenes are those where Fiona and Allen try to solve their problems by consulting a therapist (Stephen Fry).Well, actually it had some unintentional irony in it when Ben sees his play ruined by Carly (with the dying scene which was just illogic and silly). It was like "art imitating art" if this comparison might be allowed.. Though "art" might not be the right word for it.....This movie is an utterly useless and completely unsuccessful attempt to do a Woody Allen Movie without the spirit, the wit and the timing of Woody Allen.Over and over again I was just asking myself "WHAT??? You can't possibly be serious!!!"Could anyone just explain to me PLEASE why those sudden outbreaks of hooliganism by Allen beating up everybody everytime outside the pub without any reason and doing innocent small talk during and after the act are supposed to be funny????That's not even weird, it's just stupid, silly, idiotic.....Dear Fellow-Firthies, I know we all want to know every movie of ODB but I sincerely recommend to leave it to the very last, when there is no other Firth-movie left to watch (which I pray will never be!).If curiosity overcomes you and you have to watch it before nevertheless be prepared and do have some good ODB-moments at hand to soothe the stale aftertaste....
8 out of 15 people found the following review useful: An abomination upon my home town, 19 July 2004 Author: No_imagination from London
Londinium is a terrible, terrible film. Mike Binder thinks he is a Woody Allen for the millennium. He is not. Woody Allen's Bergmanesque films are funnier than this film.London is one of the greatest cities in the world, but you wouldn't get that if your only frame of reference was this film. It is a slur on its great name, and the writer/ director should never be allowed back within its walls as long as he lives.All the people involved should be ashamed for being in this film. Particularly Stephen Fry and Jack Dee, two men who are very funny indeed and should know the difference between a comedy script and the steaming pile of effluent that masqueraded as a script for this film.AVOID THIS FILM AT ALL COSTS. I HAVE SEEN IT SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO.
A flopped and unconvincing attempt at humour with weak characters and dialogue, 18 November 2007 Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK
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.
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