Rancid Aluminium
UK 2000
Reviewed by Danny Leigh
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
London, the present. Pete Thompson enjoys a life of drug use and lethargy, until the death of his father leaves him in charge of the family publishing business. Eager to conceive with his girlfriend Sarah, he discovers his sperm count is low and begins a course of fertility treatment.
His best friend, company accountant Sean Deeny - who is irked at Pete's inheritance - plots a take-over of the company using borrowed funds from a Russian mafioso named Mr Kant. Pete has a brief fling with his secretary Charlie, then leaves for Germany with Deeny and Sarah to meet with Kant. There, he furtively sleeps with Kant's daughter Masha.
Pete returns to London, only to be summoned to Russia. Once in Russia, he sleeps with Masha again, before being shot by Kant as a warning to his other western debtors. Back in London, Pete returns alive - unbeknownst to Deeny, his execution by Kant was purely for show. Learning both Masha and Sarah are pregnant and realising what Deeny is up to, Pete enlists Masha to provide him with an alibi while he pursues his nemesis. Deeny kidnaps Sarah and Charlie. Pete confronts Deeny and kills him in a gunfight.
Review
Rather as John Dahl's otherwise efficient melodrama Rounders was laid waste by the faux-Muscovite drawl of John Malkovich, it would be hard to discuss Rancid Aluminium without prior reference to Steven Berkoff and his Russian accent. Given little more than the constant repetition of one word, "business", on which to build his performance, the relish with which Berkoff savours its evolution - from the early "biznez" to a climactic "byeez-nyuzz" - soon consumes every soggy plot point debut feature director Edward Thomas (screenwriter of House of America) can muster. Indeed, the whole issue of inflection proves tricky; while the producers may have felt Rhys Ifans' Mockney yelp and Joseph Fiennes' Oirish-by-numbers turn lent the project a boisterous, cartoonish quality, they actually just make much of the film unintelligible.
All of which betrays a deeper flaw - the film's slapdash contempt for its audience. Just as Berkoff's loan shark Kant is an implausible caricature, the Russia he supposedly represents is simply a patch of wasteland populated by whores and balalaika players. Thomas ventured into Poland for location work, but what he returned with could easily have been filmed in Barking. London, meanwhile, is reduced to a couple of hastily composed shots of Big Ben and Notting Hill's Portobello Road, which only heighten the mystery of Ifans' gor-blimey cadence.
It would probably be unfair to hold the director solely responsible. Certainly, he does appear more comfortable fetishising his characters' lifestyle accoutrements (getting particularly excited when lingering over a long line of coke) than establishing dramatic tension or reining in his actors' self-indulgent performances. However, James Hawes' script, adapted from his own novel, is where the problems start.
Busy adorning the script with some of the most painfully self-conscious dialogue since Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels ("I could feel 'er breff," Ifans mumbles, "across free fousaand miles of night,"), Hawes forgets to plug the narrative holes left by the absence of common sense. And even more fundamentally, why our sympathies should lie with the pampered offspring of a wealthy publisher whose time is spent cheating on his girlfriend remains an enigma throughout Rancid Aluminium. Neither, for that matter, does it ever become clear how a charmless fop like Pete Thompson manages to inflict his libido on so many women, or why the hitherto amoral Kant suddenly comes over all philanthropic and allows Thompson to waltz off without repaying a penny of his debts.
Sadly, all that's left is a shoddy exercise in laddish wish-fulfilment, where women are only good for child-bearing and - in a casually repellent motif Thomas likes so much he uses it twice - covering themselves in cum for their own machiavellian ends. Which, as a visual insignia for this ugly, sexist farrago, just about says it all.
Credits
- Director
- Edward Thomas
- Producers
- Mike Parker
- Mark Thomas
- Polish Unit:
- Teresa Dworzecka
- Screenplay
- James Hawes
- Based on his own novel
- Director of Photography
- Tony Imi
- Editor
- Chris Lawrence
- Production Designer
- Hayden Pearce
- Music
- John Hardy
- ©Entertainment Film Distributors Limited
- Production Companies
- Entertainment Film Distributors present a Mark Thomas/Fiction Factory production
- Executive Producer
- Nigel Green
- Co-producer
- James Hawes
- Line Producers
- Dic Jones
- Polish Unit:
- Miroslaw Warchol
- Associate Producer
- Chris Milburn
- Production Co-ordinator
- Tilly Creswell
- Production Manager
- Polish Unit:
- Marcin Marcinkiewicz
- Unit Managers
- Gareth Skelding
- Polish Unit:
- Wieslaw Kardas
- Location Managers
- Dyfed Williams
- Polish Unit:
- Miroslawa Manko
- Post-production Supervisor
- Lionel Strutt
- Assistant Directors
- Harry Boyd
- Chris Dando
- Rhian Wyn-Jones
- Joanna Crow
- Polish Unit:
- Andrzej Bednarski
- Barbara Szyszko
- Malgorzata Adamska
- Script Supervisor
- Pam Humphreys
- Script Co-ordinator
- Polish Unit:
- Dorota Paczka
- Camera Operators
- Paul Godfrey
- Polish Unit:
- Andrzej Musial
- Steadicam Operator
- Paul Edwards
- Special Effects Supervisors
- Richard Reeve
- Polish Unit:
- Arkadiusz Rosczak
- Polish Unit Designer
- Jacek Osadowski
- Art Director
- Tom Pearce
- Costume Designer
- Jany Temime
- Costume Supervisors
- Stephanie Eatwell
- Polish Unit:
- Renata Wlasow
- Make-up
- Designer:
- Meinir Jones-Lewis
- Artist:
- Kathy Ducker
- Polish Unit Supervisor:
- Czeslawa Baldo
- Titles
- Men in White Coats
- End Roller
- Creative Partnership
- Optical Effects
- GSE
- Score Recorder
- Stewart Lucas
- Score Mixer
- Dai Shell
- Soundtrack
- "Solomon Bites the Worm" by Adam Devlin, Edward Chester, Scott Morriss, Mark Morriss, performed by The Bluetones; "Motown Funk" by Ian Davenport, Andy Lovegrove, performed by Away Team; "Come Love Me" by Kristian Ottestad, performed by Getaway People; "Sentimental Song" by Richard Green, performed by Ultrasound; "Pumping on the Stereo" by Gareth Coombes, Michael Quinn, Daniel Goffey, Robert Joseph Coombes, performed by Supergrass; "Nightcrawler" by Adam Routh; "The Tunnel" by Ali Friend, David Ayers, Richard Thair, Byron Walker, performed by Red Snapper; "Gunfire" by Philly Collins, James Locke, Callum McNair, performed by Philly; "Strong" by Robbie Williams, Guy Chambers, performed by Robbie Williams; "To Earth with Love" by Cliff Jones, Nick Crowe, Nigel Hoyle, James Risebero, performed by Gay Dad; "Connection" by Justine Frischmann, performed by Elastica; "Survive" by David Bowie, Reeves Gabrels, performed by David Bowie
- Sound Recording
- Sandy MacRae
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Kevin Brazier
- Dialogue Editor
- Kallis Shamaris
- Sound Effects Editors
- Campbell Askew
- Blair Jollands
- Foley
- Artists:
- John Fewell
- Julie Ankerson
- David Humphries
- Mixers:
- Trevor Swanscott
- Robin Brazier
- Alan Sallabank
- Robert Thompson
- Simon Day
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- Glenn Marks
- Polish Unit:
- Robert Brzezinski
- Animal Handlers
- Rockwood Animals on Film
- Cast
- Rhys Ifans
- Pete Thompson
- Joseph Fiennes
- Sean Deeny
- Tara Fitzgerald
- Masha
- Sadie Frost
- Sarah
- Steven Berkoff
- Mr Kant
- Keith Allen
- Dr Jones
- Dani Behr
- Charlie
- Andrew Howard
- Trevor
- Nick Moran
- Harry
- Olegario Fedoro
- Mr Kant's bodyguard
- Barry Foster
- doctor
- Brian Hibbard
- Giovanni
- Steven Speirs
- BMW man
- Joshua Richards
- police officer
- Mariusz Czajka
- Mittelmaier
- Robert Brzezinski
- Malenkov
- Katarzyna Trzcinska
- prostitute
- Ryszard Janikowski
- heavy
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- Entertainment Film Distributors Ltd
- 8,211 feet
- 91 minutes 15 seconds
- Dolby
- In Colour
- Super 35 [2.35:1]