Fast Food
UK 1998
Reviewed by Kevin Maher
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
An anonymous British city, the present day. Benny, a telephone engineer, returns to his gang - Zac, Jacko, Bisto and Flea - after 20 years away. The next day, Benny sees local mobster Dwayne deposit some cash in a safe in the local sweet shop. Benny finds a phone-sex card, dials the number and talks to a girl called Letitia. On the pretext of fixing her phone, Benny visits Letitia's flat. He discovers that she is blind and, after finding a photograph of a murder victim, he leaves.
Back at the flat, a pizza-delivery boy brings the wrong pizza; Zac shoots him. Benny visits Letitia again. This time she confesses that she is actually Claudia, the daughter of the sweet-shop owner. Dwayne is keeping her prisoner to ensure that nothing happens to the money he stores in her father's shop. Dwayne finds them together and removes Benny to be tortured, but Benny is saved by Zac and the rest of the gang. That night they decide to rob Dwayne's safe. During the robbery Benny shoots Zac and flees with the money. Benny and Claudia are chased by the gang and by Dwayne. In a warehouse, Claudia kills Dwayne, Flea shoots himself, and Jacko, Bisto and Zac, disillusioned, go home. Claudia's eyesight returns.
Review
As a compendium of derivative movie moments, Fast Food has taken the art of referencing other films to a new and absurd level. Within its noirish story parameters (Benny is a small-time player who ends up embroiled in a world of violent crime when he falls for Claudia, a gangster's moll), debut director Stewart Sugg makes countless, often incongruous nods to other films. In one of Fast Food's first scenes, for instance, Benny's gang assault an old tramp in the Underground. Why? Presumably because it looks like a similar scene from A Clockwork Orange (1971). Benny takes drugs at a party. Why? So he can spin around the room attached to the camera like Harvey Keitel in Mean Streets (1973). When Zac shoots a pizza-delivery boy, it's not vital to the story, but it happened in GoodFellas, so why not? Then there's Dwayne, the gangster who bursts into Claudia's flat like Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet and then starts quoting verbatim from Carlito's Way - "Do you think you're big time? You're gonna die big time!"
The result of all this showy, strangely distracting referencing is that there is little texture left for the characters in the film. They seem like ciphers from US urban crime movies, ready for the next scene (from Casino, perhaps, or Reservoir Dogs). The central relationship of Benny and Claudia feels forced and smacks of male wish-fulfilment. Emily Woof's blind Claudia is a well-worn noir conceit. From Ida Lupino in On Dangerous Ground (1951) to Audrey Hepburn in Wait until Dark (1967), the blind heroine in jeopardy is a familiar figure, one who compensates for her disability by being extra resourceful. Yet Claudia is deeply ineffectual and infantile, prone to displaying her underwear and running about her apartment like a giddy wood nymph. It also doesn't help that Woof plays her as if she is still rehearsing.
Sugg's direction is perfunctory (apart from a few narratively redundant visual flourishes such as a helicopter shot of Benny talking on the phone) but it's his writing that really lets him down. Claudia and Benny's dialogue is particularly excruciating. "I used to buy sweets from your Dad's shop. I've come to rescue you," says Benny. "Maybe we can rescue each other," replies Claudia. Elsewhere plot plausibility is utterly rejected under the pressure of narrative resolution. Despite being shot at and betrayed by Benny, the gang forgive him when Flea inexplicably kills himself. And finally, there's blind Claudia, whose eyes were torn to shreds when she was a child. After she is bumped on the head while fleeing the mob, her eyesight magically returns in time for the closing credits.
Credits
- Director
- Stewart Sugg
- Producer
- Phil Hunt
- Screenplay
- Stewart Sugg
- Director of Photography
- Simon Reeves
- Editor
- Jeremy Gibbs
- Production Designer
- Katie Franklyn-Thompson
- Music
- Ben Lee-Delisle
- ©Fast Food Films Ltd
- Production Companies
- A Twin Pictures and Fast Food Films in association with Vine International Pictures presentation
- Executive Producers
- Tessa Gibbs
- Stewart Sugg
- Production Co-ordinator
- Laurence Titton
- Production Manager
- Joel Holmes
- Location Manager
- Joel Holmes
- Assistant Directors
- David Broder
- Dan Leon
- Continuity
- Marion Joen
- Casting
- Lucy Boulting
- 2nd Unit Cameraman
- Chris Bairstow
- Steadicam
- Dion Casey
- Special Effects Designer
- Garfield Taylor
- Art Directors
- Charlie Tymms
- Natasha Norbacka
- Costume Designer
- Clara Apollo
- Make-up/Hair Designer
- Elizabeth Burrage
- Titles/Opticals
- Roy Slater
- Philip Dimbleby
- Orchestrations/Conductor
- Tom Gray
- Music Supervisor
- Ross Merrin
- Music Mixer
- Howard Gott
- Music Recording Engineer
- Ben Cape
- Soundtrack
- "SMDU" by Damon Albarn, Alex James, Graham Coxon, Dave Rowntree, Liam Howlett, Smith, Miller, Thornton, Randolph, performed by Brock Landers; "Evel Knievel" by D. Dahlarge, D. Baxter, performed by Deadly Avenger vs. Ceasefire; "Squashy Lemon Squeezy (All Seeing I Mix)" by/performed by Pocketsize; "Bachelor Pad" by R. Cameron, T. Tanaka, Y. Fukutomi, performed by The Fantastic Plastic Machine; "Beatmaker" by Berndt Egerbladh, Cowan, performed by Doris; "Stepping Stones" by/performed by Johnny Harris; "Fleet" by Christopher Heidman, Stephen Cruze, Stephen Hermann, performed by Sukpatch; "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, performed by Simon Macarthy, Tom Gray, Ben Lee-Delisle, Rob Jensen; "I Would Fix You - Mint Royale Mix" by L. Laverne, performed by P. Gofton, by M. du Santiago, performed by Kenickie; "Freaky Geaky" by Chris Waitt, performed by Moo; "Eel" by Chris Baker, Neil Claxton, performed by The Mint Gun Club; "Paper Boat" by Jon Cotton, David Picking, Mary McConnell, performed by Gramophone; "Monster Truck" by Alejandro Rosso, Juan Jose Gonzalez, C. Borrel, A. Fuentes, R. Harris, J. Marks, performed by Plastilina Mosh; "The Blend" by Wherry, Teeba, Ibrahim, performed by The Herbaliser, What What; "Fast Food" by Chris Baker, Neil Claxton, performed by Mint Royale featuring Stephen Lord; "Evil Heat" by Chris Teckham, Duncan Lovatt, performed by Ten Benson; "Monday Mornings" by James McColl, Derek McManus, Alan Tilston, performed by The Supernaturals; "Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Theme" by John Williams
- Sound Design
- Mike Prestwood Smith
- Sound Mixer
- Nick Stoker
- Dubbing Mixer
- Peter Hodges
- Dialogue Editor
- Nick Stocker
- Effects Editor
- Sue Lenny
- Foley
- Artist:
- Andie Derrick
- Editor:
- Sue Lenny
- Location Consultants
- Sarah Wren
- Harvey Edgington
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Malcolm Weaver
- Armourer
- Baptys
- Cast
- Douglas Henshall
- Benny Anstruther
- Emily Woof
- Letitia/Claudia
- Miles Anderson
- Dwayne
- Gerard Butler
- Jacko
- Stephen Lord
- Flea
- Danny Midwinter
- Bisto
- Robert Donovan
- Zac
- Graham Turner
- Ernie
- Sean Hughes
- Fish
- David Yip
- Mr Fortune Cookie
- Michael Chmielewski
- Oleg
- Lesley Duff
- Scarlet
- Gary Sefton
- Mojo
- Robin Clifford
- Hilary
- Lincoln Hudson
- the butcher
- Dominic Hecht
- Iddo Goldberg
- junkies
- Max Anderson
- young Benny
- Hannah Morris
- young Letitia
- Ben Lee-Delisle
- busker
- the band
- Simon Macarthy
- singer
- Tom Gray
- lead guitar
- Seb Lee-Delisle
- bass
- Rob Jensen
- drums
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- Optimum Releasing
- 8,957 feet
- 99 minutes 32 seconds
- DTS stereo
- In Colour