Love, Honour and Obey

Hey, it's another British gangster film - time to wheel out the Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels comparisons then, right? I swear the Teletubbies could come up with a feature presentation and it would be compared to Guy Ritchie's work… Ooh, now if Mr Ritchie was responsible for such a film… oops, off track - sorry 'bout dat.

Jonny (Jonny Lee Miller) is a courier, while his childhood mate Jude (Jude Law) is doing the gangster thing for his uncle Ray (Ray Winstone - notice any pattern with the character names yet?), who has quite the penchant for karaoke. On being dutifully informed that if he hangs in for another ten years he may be graced with the position of training supervisor, Jonny approaches Jude in an attempt to get in with his Uncle's mob to get some real action. Soon after he's in, and the fun begins as he tries to stir up a bit of war between the biggest gangster in town, Ray, and his opposing Sarf London gang. After all, what's up with a gang that does bugger all more than spend their time concerned with wedding plans, impotency, Star Trek and singing obscure '60s songs? His attempts to stir the merde succeed, but with consequences he may not have anticipated…

"What's safer about a warehouse?" "Well, you can't steal a warehouse, can you? It's heavy, innit? It's big - it's stuck to the bloody ground... "

Sure Love, Honour and Obey may appeal to fans of Ritchie's stuff, with its combination of keystone gangsters, silliness, revenge, often extreme violence, Elvis impersonations and stiffy jokes, plus some occasional snappy editing, however it really is in quite a different league. As it seems a prerequisite nowadays that any film such as this MUST be compared, it has to be said that this is nowhere near as stylish as Guy's work, but it does stand on its own as a fairly silly and entertaining bit of admittedly gruesome at times fluff, and it certainly cannot be accused of failing to entertain. The cast seem to have had a blast, and quite a few big names pop up on top of those mentioned earlier, including the wonderful Kathy Burke, Sadie Frost, Denise Van Outen and Rhys Ifans.

There are two versions of the film included - one is in anamorphically enhanced 1.85:1, and the other is full frame. Neither are particularly snazzy considering the movie's young age, with some grain, numerous examples of shimmering (in particular on a blue and white striped shirt), black and white specks on occasions, some noticeable haloing and also some reds that just about make your eyes bleed at times. Whilst it's not particularly detailed, at least black levels are relatively pleasing, and what dark scenes there are manage to exhibit some reasonable clarity. Still, considering there's naff all on the disc other than one version of the film on either layer and a rather low bit rate soundtrack, this is a pretty poor effort.

All we get is a rather unspectacular Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, which is always a disappointment on films such as this when the bullets start flying. It is clear enough, and synch is fine, although some of the dialogue is hard to catch at times even for the most seasoned of Brit-speak veterans. Even if your amp processes things into a six channel set-up there's really nothing to get excited about at all here.

There's not really a lot in the music department, save for a number of karaoke numbers performed by the cast themselves. Noel Gallagher of Manchurian bigmouths Oasis contributes a track entitled Force of Nature that recurs throughout, and it's actually better then anything he and Liam and the gang have come up with for quite a while. Oh, and second-rate Stevie Wonder impersonator Jay Kay and Jamiroquai show up with a track too, along with a few other bits and pieces - just enough to allow that requisite soundtrack album to be released.

'Ear, some geezer must 'ave nicked'em, right? 'Cos there ain't none. Unless you count an animated menu - woo, 'old me back...

Elvis may have left the building before the film's end, but I'd doubt that any fan of unmistakably British filmmaking that's watching this would do the same. As a disc there's really sod all to recommend this for purchase, with average audio and video, no extras whatsoever and questionable replay value, however it is very well suited for renting on one of those nights where you simply want a rather dumb and entertaining flick to pass an hour and a half. There's plenty of violence to keep the boys happy, and girls - well, there's diamonds and Jude Law...