Rancid Aluminum Review
By Christopher Null
Here's what I do know: Rhys Ifans and Joseph Fiennes play partners in a business somewhere in Britain. They're out of cash, so they decide to borrow money from a Russian mafioso of sorts. Meanwhile, Ifans and his girlfriend (Sadie Frost) decide they want to have babies... but they can't get pregnant. But Ifans eye is wandering... to his secretary and to Tara Fitzgerald's Russian mafia princess. For some reason, everyone wants this guy! And if they don't want him, they want him dead.
The confusing series of events (which naturally involve a whole lot of guns and doublecrosses) are only half the problem; the thick accents -- Brit and Russkie -- mask any semblance of understandability in the storyline. A lot of it is dubbed -- notably Fitzgerald's inexplicable casting as the icy Russian babe, playing unsuccessfully against type -- and that doesn't help the coherence of the film.
Aside from a few good lines (the ones I could hear, anyway) about the infantilism of Westerners and a couple of bizarre scenes that can only come courtesy of the quirky Ifans, there's not a lot here to recommend.
Facts and Figures
Year: 2000
Run time: 91 mins
In Theaters: Friday 21st January 2000
Distributed by: LionsGate Entertainment
Reviews
Contactmusic.com: 2 / 5
IMDB: 3.6 / 10
Cast & Crew
Director: Edward Thomas
Producer: Mike Parker, Mark Thomas
Screenwriter: James Hawes
Also starring: Rhys Ifans, Joseph Fiennes, Tara Fitzgerald, Sadie Frost, Mike Parker, Mark Thomas, James Hawes