Plotless, pointless, tediously dull and lifeless. This film is a serious contender for the worst film that Britain has ever made. It is therefore no surprise to see Samantha Morton, the actress in the equally dreadful Brit-flick Under the Skin (1997), takes the leading role.
Whereas dreadful Hollywood fodder like Showgirls, Battlefield Earth and Wild Wild West have some (although not many) redeeming features, Joseph Lees has none. It's not even fun to watch as a bad film. It starts off awful and then declines from there. It's the celluloid equivalent of Japanese water torture.
Why is it so bad? Well, it is the sum of its parts. The direction is pedestrian, the acting is rotten, the script is dull, the story is predictable, the setting is miserable and all the characters do is mope around for two hours looking depressed. However, it is the sheer pointlessness of it all that deals the crushing blow. There is nobody to root for, nobody you can equate to, nobody to really care about. There is no humour, no emotion, no life, no empathy and nothing to make you want to watch it to the end.
Imagine sitting for in an empty bar being spoken at by somebody incredibly boring and utterly unlikeable about something you do not care about. They talk in a dull, monotone voice, and after two painfully slow hours, they get up mid-sentence and leave without saying goodbye, even though you had the decency to sit there a waste a couple of hours of your life listening to their inane little tale.
It would be more enjoyable to sit through all eight hours of Andy Warhol's lesson in pointless film-making, Empire, without a toilet break. Why the producers saw fit to spend the limited resources of the British film industry to make a godawful film that nobody would want to see boggles the mind. The only use for this film would be to show film students in a 'How Not To Make Movies' class. Avoid at all costs.
Whereas dreadful Hollywood fodder like Showgirls, Battlefield Earth and Wild Wild West have some (although not many) redeeming features, Joseph Lees has none. It's not even fun to watch as a bad film. It starts off awful and then declines from there. It's the celluloid equivalent of Japanese water torture.
Why is it so bad? Well, it is the sum of its parts. The direction is pedestrian, the acting is rotten, the script is dull, the story is predictable, the setting is miserable and all the characters do is mope around for two hours looking depressed. However, it is the sheer pointlessness of it all that deals the crushing blow. There is nobody to root for, nobody you can equate to, nobody to really care about. There is no humour, no emotion, no life, no empathy and nothing to make you want to watch it to the end.
Imagine sitting for in an empty bar being spoken at by somebody incredibly boring and utterly unlikeable about something you do not care about. They talk in a dull, monotone voice, and after two painfully slow hours, they get up mid-sentence and leave without saying goodbye, even though you had the decency to sit there a waste a couple of hours of your life listening to their inane little tale.
It would be more enjoyable to sit through all eight hours of Andy Warhol's lesson in pointless film-making, Empire, without a toilet break. Why the producers saw fit to spend the limited resources of the British film industry to make a godawful film that nobody would want to see boggles the mind. The only use for this film would be to show film students in a 'How Not To Make Movies' class. Avoid at all costs.