The Riddle (2007)

Director:

Brendan Foley

Writer:

Brendan Foley (writer)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Plot:

A journalist investigates a series of murders that follows the discovery of an unpublished novel by Charles Dickens in the cellar of an old Thames-side-pub. Gradually he becomes obsessed with unraveling a century-old murder in the pages of the manuscript. Only when he has done so, with the help of a mysterious beach-combing tramp who stalks the Thames foreshore, is he able to solve the modern murders.

Cast

Vinnie Jones	...	Mike Sullivan
Derek Jacobi	...	The Tramp / Charles Dickens
Julie Cox	...	Kate Merrill
Vanessa Redgrave	...	Roberta Elliot
Jason Flemyng	...	Don Roberts CEO
P.H. Moriarty	...	D.I. Willis / Constable Frederick (as P H Moriarty)
Mel Smith	...	Professor Cranshaw
Vera Day	...	Sadie Miller
Mark Asante	...	Dwayne
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Matt Bailey	...	Lab Technician
Daniel Bartlett	...	Rower
Vincent Bishop	...	Interview Room PC (as Vince Bishop)
Barbara Edwards	...	Receptionist
'Long Bob' Elvin	...	Harry the Hat
John Enright	...	Arresting PC
Elly Fairman	...	Veronica Miller (as Ellie Fairman)
Michael Fenton Stevens	...	Alistair Forsyth M.P.
Shelly Goldstein	...	Mrs. Maud Skenshal
Sandy Hill	...	Maid
Gareth Hunt	...	Roy McBride
Scott James	...	Kev
Ted James	...	Baby Jimmy daCosta
Allin Kempthorne	...	Cedric Skenshal
Michael Lawson	...	Mourner
Kenny Lynch	...	Shotgun Ronnie White
Louise Morrison	...	Kelly Robinson
Clemmie Myers	...	Margot and Alice Abercrombie
Tommy O'Neill	...	Foreshore Thug 2
Terry Powell	...	Butler
Magda Rodriguez	...	Ruth
Darren Selvidge	...	Thames River PC
Paul Valentine	...	Foreshore Thug 1

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for violence, language and brief sexuality.

Runtime:

UK:116 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:12 | USA:PG-13 | Singapore:NC-16

Filming Locations:

Chislehurst Caves, Chislehurst, Kent, England, UK

Company:

Grosvenor Park Productions

Trivia:

UK newspaper the Mail on Sunday bought UK-only DVD rights and distributed the film as the "world's first national newspaper premiere" in September 2007. The paper reported sales up by more than 300,000.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the bar scene where the main character is drugged by Tiffany, we see him reach down to pick up her wallet, she is wearing solid black shoes In the next scene (Wide Shot) where she drags the drunk/drugged Vinnie Jones to his apartment, she is wearing open toe shiny ones.

Soundtrack:

Crazy

One of those films that just got made because it could, not because it should

The growth of tax funds and sale-and-leaseback schemes has led to a raft of unsaleable films that are gathering dust in laboratories and vaults all over the British Isles because they seem to be made purely because they fit the financial criteria rather than had any potential audience. A lucky few get a week at a small screen in London before going to budget DVD, but The Riddle distinguished itself by completely bypassing cinema, TV or even the rental market to premiere as a free gift DVD in the Mail on Sunday.

It's all too easy to see why this ended up being literally given away. Aside from a couple of glitches (a boom mike is clearly visible in one shot) it's not particularly badly made, and while Vinnie Jones comes over like modern British cinema's version of Freddie Mills Mills as the greyhound reporter who wants to move up to the crime desk and the supporting cast veer from ham to vaguely passable, nobody's distinguishing themselves here by being either outstandingly good or outstandingly bad: mediocrity is more the norm here. The real problem is that like so many sale-and-leaseback tax fund films, it's a 'soft' film - there's no reason to watch it. It exists because the circumstances existed for it to be made, but it lacks pace or forward momentum. It seems to be aiming for the Sunday teatime telly audience (despite being shot in Scope) but doesn't cut it. There are a couple of okayish ideas in this determinedly inoffensive tale of a unpublished Charles Dickens manuscript and a couple of suspicious deaths in modern-day Limehouse, but the mystery element is so painfully obvious - as is the last-minute supernatural twist (you'll never guess who Jacobi's literate tramp really is. What, you guessed?) - that you're almost expecting the Scooby Gang or the Double Deckers to turn up to solve it.

It's a very misconceived film for all kinds of reasons: a few cast members are playing double roles when they shouldn't even be playing one, and the whole shock reveal of the truth of the Dickens manuscript is completely bungled because it's all narrated in the first person by Dickens rather than the supposed character of the novel. The main murder in the film is clumsily integrated into the main plot, with characters suddenly reminding Vinnie that he's forgotten about that one already, heralding an increasingly desperate final half hour that sees wicked developer Jason Flemyng's secretary puts some Rohypnol in Vinnie's drink so she can have her wicked way with him and leave incriminating photos behind "to make you look a git with your girlfriend," leading to him having a dream where he talks to Charles Dickens ("You're Charles Dickings" "What's in a name?"), who offers the somewhat less than likely suggestion that "You read too many books." But all that's as nothing compared to the finale, which falls into utter absurdity, with logic and common sense going completely out the window as it plays like some bizarre Jacobean revenge tragedy with handguns on the banks of the Thames, with two-day guest stars Flemyng and Vanessa Redgrave looking like they'd much rather be somewhere else (Mel Smith turns up in a one-day cameo, so it's clear that the film's 'names' are mainly there for an easy $10k or to meet their alimony payments). The film's final image is so utterly absurd and pointless as to almost make it worth watching, though.

One curiosity is a fairly prominent role in the first third for Vera Day, a sort of prototype Liz Fraser and one-time mainstay of 50s British films - the barmaid in Hell Drivers, the barmaid in Quatermass II - here promoted to pub owner, while standup comedian Kenny Lynch turns up briefly to give the best performance as an old school gangster. Oh, and the late Gareth Hunt makes his last bow as - oh the irony - a coroner...

Just to round out the package, the freebie DVD also included a trailer for the director's other film with Vinnie Jones, Bog Bodies, a naff-looking British horror with transAtlantic scientists and Vinnie in Elmer Fudd duck hunter outfit terrorized by a reanimated 2000-year old sacrificial victim from the nearest peat bog ("Be wewwy, wewwy qwuiet: I'm hunting dwuids"). I can hardly wait...

The one thing I can guarantee, however, is that every indie producer in the UK is going to spend the next few weeks trying to find out exactly how much the Mail paid for the license to press the DVD (they paid Prince £250,000 for his new CD). With so many British tax-shelter indies on the shelf and with money so hard to find at the moment, this could become an interesting fallback market for British flicks.