Before Guy Ritchie came along to make Brit comedy gangster flicks inspired by Quentin Tarantino. Here is one director Simon Cellan Jones made earlier as part of the Rik Mayall presents strand.
Rik Mayall plays Lewis Fox, a lazy lying estate agent. A compulsive liar who is told off by his boss for stretching the truth too much.
When asked to sell na upscale London docklands duplex apartment. Fox decides to stay there for a few days. Finding a bunch of credit cards and he decides to impersonate the owner John Wilde thinking he has gone abroad.
Fox goes to an exclusive nightclub with a date Jules (Saffron Burrows) who thinks he is a hotshot. Only some people are suspicious of this new look John Wilde and think he has had plastic surgery.
Eventually Fox finds out that Wilde is dead, he ends up bedding his widow. However gangster Peter McCrane was after Wilde as he borrowed a lot of money from McCrane.
Now everyone thinks that Fox is Wilde after the plastic surgery and are out to kill him.
Slightly contrived, maybe too far fetched, it does play to Mayall's strengths. It is surprising to think this might have been the first Tarantino type comedy thriller made by British tv after the success of Pulp Fiction.
