Scarlett - Diamond of Revenge

Neil Marshall, a filmmaker I used to be a big fan of in the 2000s and early 2010s, is single-handedly ruining his career by making it his prerogative to show off his fiancée Charlotte Kirk in all his recent flicks. She's great eye candy indeed but has the charisma of a block of wood. Same applies to the rest of the cast she's working with. Marshall's desperately trying to pull off a Guy Ritchie here and fails big time. The voiceovers and quirky edits are all lacking the stamp of a seasoned filmmaker, much less their eleventh venture if I were to be precise.

Is this the same guy who astonished us with practical effects in Dog Soldiers and made us gasp for breath in The Descent? Neil, you gotta bounce back man. Don't go down the Rob Zombie path. Don't compromise on the filmmaking vision. Don't treat us to lazily made garbage like Duchess and deem it feminist just because the lead character is a woman. Also, was it unfair to expect some wry Brit humour at least? What a charmless affair!

This low budget, British action film has a very shaky start. The dialogue is silly. The camera work not great. However, this one takes a turn for the better along the way and becomes much better than it starts. It is a revenge film and it has decent action and fight choreography. The film is done very much in the style of Jesse V. Johnson and Scott Adkins' The Accident Man; however, it is not as good. It grew on me in a way many movies of this genre do not. The film also goes under the name Scarlett, which confused me a little when trying to find it. The cast is pretty good in this on, especially, the ancillary characters.

This movie is not that bad as some reviewers say. To start, the voice over of the main character (Duchess) is great, I like that always, gives a bit of background and story telling idea. The famous trick that the beginning scene is a teaser and then back to how it all started, makes you immediately curious. It's fast paced, maybe a bit too long though, never boring. Great performance of. Charlotte Kirk, perfectly casted. Less good in my opinion is the extreme violence showed, not functional and not to my taste. The humor is great, compensates this a bit, the story is not intended to be taken too seriously. The British accents are funny on themselves. All in all worth watching when you expectations are not too high.

Surely, no Oscar material, or a match to Guy Ritchi's Gentlemen, but this movie gave me a very entertaining two hours with a well told story, massive efforts from not very talented actors (but efforts go a long way) and a consistent use of practical effects.

Surprisingly, the few well-known names (Meany and Pertwee) deliver the films least memorable moments, but Colm Meany's worst is still on par with the lead actors' best. But the lead cast do try to "steal the show" from them. Kirk delivers a solid performance as lead and I do not felt that I ever dropped my attention or got bored of her as the lead.

Altogether, I enjoyed this move and I wouldn't mind seeing it again in a few months' time.

Good enough for a TV pilot episode.

Camera work, background music, lighting, editing, sets, TV grade. If it were a show, I'd watch it. But, I would not pay to watch it in a theater, but I'd regularly watch this as a show. I swear it seemed like a pilot. Then there was a murder torture scene that shifted the entire tone, it felt out of place, then the tone suddenly lightened up again. Then it shifts and shifts again. Its like the creators couldn't decide what exactly the kind of movie or even TV show they were making. Script is full of cliche's. Expected for a TV, not a movie. Title style location labels pop across the sceen like an 80's action show. There are a unneeded pauses, for emotional reflection. Characters pontificate to spell out motivations and intentions. The script seems like it was written by young out of work would be TV writers.