Review of Spivs

Introduction

Spiv - see Derek Trotter, Arthur Daley.

We all know and love these loveable (usually cockney) rogues, who pull a few cons, scam a few businessman, do a few dodgy deals. Despite being criminals, the audience is usually rooting for them. This film focuses on one such spiv, Jack (Ken Stott), who leads his team of con artists into a new deal. Their latest deal goes rather wrong when the goods they try and steal from a lorry turn out to be slightly more lively than expected.

Also featuring are Kate Ashfield, Nick Moran, Jack Dee and Paul Kaye (yes, he of Dennis Pennis fame).

Video

A 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer, which is rather surprising for a not much budget British film. Everything looks clean and tidy, with a pleasing absence of dirt, dust, grain and other nasties.

Shot on location in London, this film also rejects the cliche shots of Big Ben, the London Eye and Buckingham Palace, although we do end up on the Underground at one point (but it`s the nice shiny station at Stratford). We spend most of our time in hotels, East End gaffs and on the odd building site.

Audio

A DD5.1 soundtrack is on offer, and this is another "functional but not much more" track. Dialogue is clean and crisp, and almost exclusively on the centre channel. There`s little else for the other speakers to do, apart from the odd atmospheric sound and a bit of tinkling from the score.

Features

We start with the audio commentary from writer/director Colin Teague, who is joined by his co-writer Gary Young. They go into detail about location scouting, filming, how they set up different shots etc. as well as talking about their cast and some of the cons. They also chat about alternative scenes and endings (sadly absent from the disc).

The only other item of note is a short featurette, which features interviews with all the main players (cast and crew), except Kate Ashfield who I couldn`t spot anywhere in the 15 minutes of run time (unless I blinked and missed her). There`s not much of value or interest though, just a few soundbites.

We finish up with the trailer.

Conclusion

Zzzzzz.

Zzzzzz.

Zzzzzz.

Now that I`ve woken up again, I`ll finish this review off. This film was boring, plain and simple. There`s not enough action to make it an action film. There`s not enough drama to make it a drama. There`s not much character depth to make it a character study.

So what is there? A loveable cockney spiv, who just turns out to have a heart of gold. Faced with the choice of more scams, or helping his helpless human cargo, he decides to help them, to show the audience that beneath his conman exterior he`s just a nice guy looking for redemption. And then along come cliched Eastern European human traffickers, who are about as scary as Jesse Birdsall (yes, the bloke from Eldorado and Bugs).

This is a dull mess of a film, and I can`t even recommend a rental. If you want some East End villains, watch Snatch - at least it`s fun and you`ll have a laugh. This disc is a reasonable enough effort with a good transfer, average sound, and some attempt at extras. At the end of a day, it`s best left well alone though.