3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Duchess

2023, Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers) -- download

I always find it odd when I have seen pretty much everything in a director's catalogue but I find myself almost entirely "meh" about them all. Like a lot of people, we loved  the fuck out of Dog Soldiers, an action-horror movie about British soldiers vs Werewolves, but admittedly I haven't seen it since. And many of his movies since have found some way to appeal to me in one way or another, but none of them would get fully favourable reviews. And yet here I am, writing about another one. 

I don't find it odd that the way you write a sentence may be explained by the amount of popular British Victorian literature you read as a kid. Long sentences long to be long.

Amateurish but with a lot of money? Sometimes a lot of money? Sometimes smacking of a sincere lack of budget? Obviously Marshall is not getting top dollar, but he has had success in the past working within the confines of his budget and genre. It wouldn't have been difficult to colour within the lines on this movie but he ... didn't?

OK, I get ahead of myself. Marshall comes to us with his run at a Guy Ritchie Film. That means UK gangsters with colourful accents, freeze frames, explainer dialogue and mega-violence. I mean, that style of action-crime-thriller has been around strongly since the 90s. Did it exist before Ritchie's take on it? Probably. Doesn't matter don't care; its labelled as its labelled now. 

Scarlett (Charlotte Kirk, The Lair) is an accomplished pick pocket who catches the eye of Rob (Philip Winchester, Crusoe), an American ex-military type now caught up in the diamond smuggling world. At first Scarlett resists his charms but eventually she falls for his white knighting, arse over tea kettle. She becomes his girl, his "Duchess".

But almost immediately Rob and his crew find themselves defending themselves against an unknown antagonist. Someone is trying to muscle in on his business just before Rob pulls off the most lucrative score of his career. Rob is cocky, so self-assured in his place in the world, and so enamoured & distracted by Duchess that he doesn't see the betrayers in his midst. His oldest and best friend takes the business from him and sends Rob and Duchess off to the desert to be killed. Except she doesn't get killed.

She comes back from the dead, finds Rob's two remaining loyal friends, a pair of pit bulls from his military days -- no, not literally, but Marshall staple Sean Pertwee (Gotham) as Danny, and Billy Baraka (Hoji Fortuna, Paixão). She teams up with them, makes a quick new crew and takes her most bloody revenge upon those that took Rob from them.

Its not that I dislike the movie, but you can see the seams. When building a scene about a diamond fence who works out of the art world, they could have done a glamorous party, full of posh people that Scarlett would embarrass, but they skirt past the five extras playing party patrons to a humdrum back room scene where Charlie the Fence (Stephanie Beacham, Coronation Street) shows how violent and ruthless she is by doing the whole Columbian necktie. Later, when Ron is visiting the place where he processes his stolen diamonds, one would think it would be filled the brim with armed goons, but the handful of guys in suits die quickly when Rob is betrayed. And speaking of gun fights, I had never seen more ineffective, bloodless gun fights since the A-Team TV show --- surely they could afford a few squibs to put holes in car doors or blow out wind screens? But nope, just bang bang bang bang bang bang duck duck duck, scene end. I mean, Rob's right and left hand are supposed to be seasoned mercenaries, but they can barely shoot better than storm troopers. And finally, for a movie that is supposed to be all about Scarlett becoming the Duchess, a self-made, self-reliant woman, there is not a single line of dialogue or action on her part that would pass the Bechtel Test, even if we don't trust that test to be real. I am not convinced that Marshall can do better, but .. I hoped?