For some inexplicable reason my unnecessary defense of Jason Statham’s mostly mindless – yet undeniably entertaining – action film career somehow manages to attract visitors to my site even in periods when he doesn’t have a film to shill (that usually closely resembles one of his earlier films).
One such visitor – Josemar G. Castor – was kind enough to leave some feedback and a suggestion, (paraphrasing) I should check out London and watch Jason Statham take a crack at this acting thing.
Dubious but determined, I first spent a month tracking down the film in the first place, which in itself was a warning sign, after all, you can find “In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale” at any good DVD store. Yes and all the shit ones too.
But I found it, so how’d we go…? Josemar, you’re stomach is stronger than mine.
Ugh, let’s just get through this.
Sid (Chris Evans) is hosting his own personal pity party which has apparently just topped six months. Even Prince would be proud. When he hears that his ex is having a large scale going away party that very evening he decides go crash it – cos he sure ain’t invited.
But before he can summon the fortitude to potentially ruin the night of dozens of celebratory party-goers Sid realises he needs some Dutch courage – or Colombian courage to be more specific. Over the evening he must have gotten very brave indeed, considering he is either snorting a line of coke or lining up a line of coke in practically every scene at the party.
Did I mention that a good two thirds of the film is set at the party?
So Sid’s drug supplier du jour is Bateman (Statham utilising Bruce Willis’s wigmaker) a well to do businessman doing a favour who despite being little more than a casual friend of convenience is dragged along to the party with the promise of fun and attractive women. The mismatched duo arrive early and head straight to the upstairs bathroom to ‘get braver’.
While they exchange snore inducing dialogue in between snorting the night away upstairs along with the occasional female visitor/partaker the party goes on downstairs. I am not much of a party guy – too much mingling – but this is one of the rare occasions that I would much rather be downstairs.
Sid is obnoxious, needy, jealous and annoying, and every other character in the film is a moron, an idiot or a bad actor. Dane Cook and Isla Fisher are both equally irritating, I think Fisher gets the benefit of the doubt as only acting that way… Statham gets to try out this acting thing with some coke-fuelled ‘wise words and a couple of short speeches that frankly go nowhere, but he’s trying to row up a waterfall of inanity.
The dull overwrought pretentiousness is periodically broken by flashbacks of ‘happier’ times with his ex London (Jessica Biel), which inevitably end up in an argument over which is stupider after talking balls for a few painful minutes. For the record Sid is stupider, way stupider.
You know the guy at the party that’s had a little too much to drink and alternates between feeling sorry for himself and demanding everyone pay attention to his boring incoherent stories? That’s Sid, but it could very neatly encapsulate this film.
Final Rating – 4.5 / 10. London might show snippets of a realistic relationship, but real life is filled with similarly crumbling alliances, and they don’t demand that everyone watch.
Genuine appreciation to Josemar for the suggestion even if I wasn’t enamoured by the product.