There are bad films; there are really bad films; there are absolute turkeys.........and then there is The Number One Girl; a film so dreadful, so badly thought through, so horribly put together that seeing is believing – I have two regrets regarding it: the first is that I even sat down to watch it while the second is that it was a direct to video release and as a result; the critics never got the chance to tear this monster the 'new one' is deserves. The film, and incidentally one of the worst of the decade out of the countless many I've seen, is a cosmic blow out of truly epic proportions: a cinematic tsunami; a volcanic eruption of badness; a sorry, woeful excuse for a feature film. A film that begins with a fake-trailer to an action film that exists purely within this movie's universe, and ends with the most absurdest of finales. I think the immediate opening was a fun poke at action films, complete with fancy camera gimmicks and stunts – the truly frightening thing is that's exactly what this picture ends up as.
The film, made by one-time only director Luc Campeau, sees a production assistant take the helm of the piece while a mixture of supporting talent and mere extras adopt the lead roles around which former footballer Vinnie Jones and the easily identifiable Pat Morita operate. It's too bad that everyone looks like they've each strolled onto the screen out of separate films. Jones' character of Dragos Molnar, who might be foreign with that sort of name but possesses a pretty good English accent, heads a beauty competition over in the English capital of London in which he invites American action film star Joey Scalini (Schiena) to partake in the judging. Scalini gets all the fancy treatment whilst over there with the added bonus he gets to meet all of the beautiful women gathered there for the show. But there is one rule: don't go getting 'too close' to any of the contestants.
The laying on of that final point is painful. Dragos dangles the carrot, and the film sees its lead character gobble it up with guilty, obligatory joy. The film is a one note documentation of a man's would-be gradual descent into obsession with the forbidden fruit, a piece that scandalously ignores practically every other item it has going for it by way of what this beauty show is all about; why it even exists; why Dragos is so unhinged and overly protective of the contestants and how such a volatile man came to be so rich and so well en-downed with a family. The film is an emotional dead-zone; a love story that doesn't exist between two people who are not even characters, but just exist on screen – best (or should that be worst?) highlighted during a woeful, painful, excruciatingly bad montage in which a character engages in gym activity and narrates his deep feelings for one of the women contestants to himself. All that's missing from this segment is a blinking green beacon in the corner of the screen and a subtitle telling us that "This is where everything will change and stuff happens."
As a lead, Joey is established as hard-bodied and somewhat 'typical' thanks to the opening fake-trailer, but the film ultimately becomes what it sends up. I don't know how most other people roll, but I find beauty contests such as the one involved to be pointless, leery, horrid, disgusting things in the first place; and yet the film has no statement on them or their existence in the world, instead goes to great lengths to establish 'so-and-so' are favourites and that they hope 'such-and-such' will win but it all amounts to absolutely nothing, bar an excuse for the film to encompass some shots of glammed up women in little outfits. Joey is a judge, of whom are equally despicable in their own way. But we're allowed to like him because we're led to believe, through the aforementioned emotionless montage. The voice-overs during this segment sound like they're being read by the actor, there and then for the very first time, off of a piece of paper. It turns out he has a soft spot for the lead contestant Tatiana (McAllister): a girl with a Russian sounding name, being played by a Scottish actress whose filmic nationality I don't recall; English, I think. The actress that plays her's largest cinematic role since was as a 'Passenger' in 2008's The Dark Knight.
Everything about The Number One Girl is dead on arrival. The action archetype send up; the chemistry between the two leads; the fact they're filming on public, non-closed off streets around London with members of the public looking in on the shooting; the manner in which I'm pretty sure the Nigerian contestant's name changes half way through; the way in which the film descends into messy, brainless thumping and pounding as violence and fighting becomes the order of the day when Jones goes absolutely spare out of the blue when two characters are actually dumb enough to cavort in front of everyone – it's big, loud and dumb whilst not much fun. Somewhere in there is some sort of statement about 'What is entertainment?' and 'What do we accept to be perfectly fine televisual content these days?' with the whole finale to do with going so far enough to kill someone in front of a packed TV audience; but it's all hopelessly lost in a hapless and painful exercise. The Number One Girl is an absolute disaster: a train wreck, a motorway pile-up, a capsizing of a ship all happening at once as a comet crashes into the ongoing madness and mayhem. One wonders what might happen if you were to bring this film up in a mocking fashion whilst in Vinnie Jones' presence; more of the immediate above, I would think.
