Savage Hearts

This is a slick lightweight 'con' adventure with substantial parts for Maryam D'Abo and Myrian Cyr. Jamie Harris plays the dozy fall guy with a certain amount of sleazy charm. Richard Harris fills his 'character' part, which he does increasingly well the older he gets, with sinister conviction and Jerry Hall is easy on the eyes as the old man's darling. Although predictable in plot the action moves along and the obligatory chase is even amusing. A good Saturday afternoon time filler.

This is one of the worst British films of the nineties. A dreadful plot about double crossing lovers, Mafia hitmen and a stolen £3 million is further hampered by a revolting score, the worst acting I've seen outside of an PG Tips commercial (if you want to know how Bad, Angus Deayton plays one of the hitmen) and editing so incompetent my only guess is those PG Tips chimps have been moonlighting as Avid operators. It's as sexy as a Haynes manual for the Volvo 420 but less amusing, as predictable as gravity and about as stylish as "Ernest Goes To Jail".

Richard Harris is the one "star", appearing in a couple of scenes that are so badly lit and shot, they must both have been dashed off in five minutes while Harris waited for his Guinness to settle. Actually the cinematography deserves a special mention for its consistent ugliness, but frankly the script wins the "worst of a bad bunch" award, especially the useless attempts at comedy banter. Dialogue example: him, "I want to make love to you"; her, "I don't have five minutes to spare" (Wagga, Wagga!) Make no mistake, despite the "jokes" in the script, Angus Deayton, and a scene where someone gets electrocuted in the testicles, this film is distressingly laugh free. It's not even unintentionally amusing in its ineptness, just tiresome.

Mark Ezra's film owes an obvious debt to Tarantino. An amoral comedy crime flick about lovers on the run with someone else's money, the script must have looked like a British "True Romance" to the luckless investors. Unfortunately the final result seems less like that film and more like those "Comic Strip Presents" spoofs of Hollywood movies, like "GLC" or "Strike", only without the irony. Mark Ezra is not the British Tarantino, he's the Nineties Ed Wood.

This is one of the better thrillers which I have seen over the past years. The plot is beautifully developed and it's a total delight from beginning to end. You would really appreciate the way in which the director has paced the film.

This film is about a woman (Myriam Cyr) who works for a group or gang which extract money from other people in the only way they know...through illegal means! Now Myriam decides, after robbing an old couple of 3 million dollars,to part away from the people under whom she works so that she alone could enjoy the pleasure of the money which she has stolen. She tries to do that by killing another woman in a car accident who looks almost the same as she does and then declare herself dead in the eyes of the world. This film concentrates on how this strategy of hers' founders. The performances given by Maryam and Jamie are simply outstanding.

A highly recommended film!!