Six Bend Trap

I do not usually bother reviewing movies....judging by personal taste is always fraught with danger....but this one.....WOW....terrible acting, soundtrack, production, direction....even the "live" band sequences at various venues have fading out recorded music.....my 4 year old son could mime better than the "Dan T's Inferno" members (pay particular attention to the drummer, who ain't NO drummer)....a script that sees itself as some type of cross between Snatch/Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels/Layer Cake/Stormy Monday/Sexy Beast and Cops and Watches (there is a Chaplinesque chase sequence thrown in....For what reason? I don't know!!) and fails to deliver on ALL counts (even on the Chaplin slapstick).....the best actor in the whole damn thing is Smoggie Dog (the greyhound)and that's probably because he does not have a speaking part......every single actor and even the background extras (watch for them to try and get their heads on a panning camera angle for as long as possible!)is trite, wooden, un-natural, and they would all be well advised to never use this crock of cr*p as a job reference.....the movie's ending leaves the option of future sequels.....I have one request Mr.McCarthy....PLEASE DON'T,PLEEEEEEEEESE

There is no excuse for poor films, not with the money put into English film and the directors/producers/scriptwriters we have to be proud of.

Its worth highlighting, anything with Dave Courtenay (if spelt wrong...arsed) in is likely to be sh*t, he isn't an actor and either bullies his way into a film or makes it prudent for the film to go ahead, so this is not a good start!! Apparenly he's an actor, errr, no he is a thug that has lost his purpose in life, or maybe has no purpose.

The acting is appalling, seriously appalling, and for most parts it is sad, because I can imagine with a bit of input, it could have been a different film with more going for it. As it is, if you manage to watch 20 minutes, well done, its far more than most will!! Give this a miss!

This is my second attempt at reviewing this film. The first time, it was deleted due to an abuse report, by another user. Not sure why. So, here we go, the toned down version.....

It gets 2. Because 1 would seem unnecessarily cruel.

What's all this about every rubbish UK gangster film (dwarf with a sword stick, oooh, yes, ALL gangsters have one of them...) now has to be compared with Guy Ritchie. I mean, he was doing Tarantino rip-offs, badly. This is a pretty risible attempt at something cool.

Wooden:

script acting direction casting

And what on EARTH was the badly choreographed dancing to the seriously bad song, about half way through? My guess is the one in the middle, dressed in black, was someone's girlfriend, 'cos she SERIOUSLY couldn't dance. Come to think of it, I'm guessing they were ALL friends and partners of the cast and crew, but they looked sad and zombified.

Oh, fer Goodness sake, where on EARTH do you start?

One and a half million quid? Who on EARTH thought that was an even half way good idea?

Not bad enough to be the worst film, far far too bland for that.

Oh, I give up. I've said far more than it deserves, already.

I've decided, for my sins, to watch a few of these low budget gangster films, I'm not proud of this decision but there you go. I've seen Full English Breakfast and last week I watched Geezers, Gangsters and Gamblers. Tonight it was Six Bend Trap a.k.a. Thugs, Mugs and Dogs (doesn't work, should've been Dougs).

Now, I heard that The Room is meant to be the best worst movie of all time, but that's because although it's bad it's compellingly so. This is just bad. Bad. Bad. There's meant to be a plot about a greyhound race, some deeds to a bit of concrete where there's some oil or something, a wedding band, blah, blah, blah... It makes no difference what it's about, it's someone's poorly conceived vanity project, there is no sense to it, it's not even mildly amusing or clever.

It seems that these low budget films are just retirement homes for actors whose careers have nosedived, this one has the omnipresent Dave Courtney playing a plastic gangster (not a stretch for him really), along with that bloke Paul Usher who used to be in Brookside (and actually this rubbish is far beneath him) and Lisa 'You've Been Framed and Mandy Dingle' Riley.

Badly edited. Badly written. Bad soundtrack. Bad acting. Bad dancing. Bad characters. Goes on for hours. Relentless. Boring. Dreadful. I could go on.

You know, you're better spending your evening trimming your nose hair or cleaning the oven. Everyone involved should be embarrassed. I'm embarrassed to have watched it.

An independently produced, low budget slapstick gangster comedy which belabours the increasingly ludicrous shenanigans of a guileless trio of Teesside likely lads attempting to train a greyhound to win at the prestigious Peterborough racing event, as portly scowling slaphead villain, Gordy (Dave Courtney) and his absurdly cackling mini-mean side-kick, Buffalo Phil (Peter Bonner) serially slap all in sundry about until the hare-racing climax. McCarthy's excitable, earnestly made, episodically amiable crime romp is both intentionally, and, fortuitously, unintentionally funny! While the noisome narrative is not always convincing, it fitfully provided a few crudely mounted moments of levity, but, overall, the dramatic elements failed to ignite.

I believe it would be entirely fair to suggest that some of the more prodigiously warped schlock-seekers will actively relish the cheesier comedic nuggets unearthed herein, and boozier members of the 'so-bad-it's-good-brigade' may well praise the film's frequent lapses of taste! I discovered that it is injudicious to feed a greyhound an excess of whiskey-laced eggs before a race, revenge is a dish best served with mushy peas, and plucky Emmerdale alumni, Lisa Riley was a real trooper being the super-sized butt of a multitude of mean spirited jibes entirely at her expense. The game cast's 'colourful' acting performances are either competent, amateurish, or conspicuously absent. Unsophisticated, poorly edited, and undeniably silly, McCarthy's cartoonish crime caper is not entirely without skewed entertainment value.