This was certainly a decent movie. A couple of parts did make me physically wince. Co-writer Stuart Ashen referring to himself as "famous". Really? The use of "whatever" twice in the first scene. Just lazy. Was it the same shot used twice too? God I hope not.
It's a good comedy heist. All the pieces are in place and it goes at a good pace.
Stuart Ashen plays a version of himself and can certainly act. I thought he could cultivate a bit more vim though. Benny (Eli Silverman) is good but could tighten up his delivery in places. Kept reminding me of a younger Bill Bailey. Agonist (Stuart Barter) needed a much firmer directional hand. I have a feeling that his Stuggy rep had director Barmania twitten, so he let him spend a lot of time delivering his dialogue to the floor. A shame as he was genuinely funny and on point at times, showing flashes of what can only be described as genius and a rapid, quirky delivery on a par with Jessica Stevenson in Spaced, so it's a pity Barmania didn't encourage greater discipline as it would have paid dividends. Jarred Christmas on the other hand managed to be also slightly famous and across the board excellent. He and lawnmower-woman did beautiful things together. In fact, she (Joanna O'Connor) was excellent too, and reminded me at times of original Leia. Wondered if this was on purpose? My other front runners would be the lovely Vocal (Katia Kvinge) and Yiannis (Yiannis Vassilakis). Kvinge's downtrodden Irish misanthropic misfit was very convincing, with a refreshingly natural delivery and she nailed all but one of her accents. Vassilakis waded through a large amount of ill-judged character material and somehow still came out smelling of roses. Very William Thacker. Dan Hardcastle surprised me by being rather good with excellent comic timing. A couple of times he was slightly undermined by Vassilakis pulling focus a bit at the side of a shot. Oh lord yes, Dan Tomlinson. Well, he got better, but his first few lines! Who let him get away with that? Jeez. I should also mention Jonathan Ashen (Nigel Fairs) who I thought was brilliant, if underused. He could teach Barter a thing or two about focus. Lesson to Barmania, it's not all about the celebs.
Smaller parts I really liked were mattress man, heist bucket man, the weary security guard who had to put up with Jake/Kevin and, naturally, the ever-excellent Robert Llewellyn.
The film looks good, the cinematography is of a high standard, the sound effects are particularly well thought out and it's certainly a bonus to watch with headphones so you can enjoy the extra nuances.
