by Cookie N Screen
Here’s a narrative never seen before in British Independent movies. A man returns from serving abroad or he is ex-military. He returns to find his home town has changed. Somebody he loves gets hurt. He springs into action. Kills everyone. The end.
Oh wait - this is a movie we have seen repeatedly in every British town that is assumedly close by to the director or producers. What aches most is that, despite the ideas that circulate the British Film Industry, people feel the need to repeat the same old garbage as is continuously washes up on the sea.
Here’s a narrative never seen before in British Independent movies. A man returns from serving abroad or he is ex-military. He returns to find his home town has changed. Somebody he loves gets hurt. He springs into action. Kills everyone. The end.
Oh wait - this is a movie we have seen repeatedly in every British town that is assumedly close by to the director or producers. What aches most is that, despite the ideas that circulate the British Film Industry, people feel the need to repeat the same old garbage as is continuously washes up on the sea.
So here we have mysterious man Dean who returns to Grimsby of all places after serving terms in the Army. Despite animousity from his father, Dean tries to reconnect with his town only gets himself into a whole lot of trouble when he falls back in love with his old sweetheart who was married to his best friend. Then she gets hurt. And then his father gets threated. You know the rest.
Clearly borrowing tropes from Shane Meadows, Pleasure Island is an unoriginal tripe of a movie that practically lifts its work from those who have come beforehand. Tiresome and exasperating, this maddening rehash of the same plot is just so dull and boring. By the time the climax hits, you’re already bored of the characters and the story. There is no substance here that hasn’t been placed onto the palates of audiences everywhere and chewed until it’s nothing but inedible fat. Pleasure Island isn’t even good in “showcasing a darker side of Britain and its crime” which movies such as this get wet thinking about. Instead, it chooses to weakly hobble along with an abundance of clichés and trails along overused dialogue until the film eventually bleeds out.
And don’t there there is Jess. Now, not meaning to spoil the film (though you probably know where this is going), Jess starts the film off as a single mother who is also a stripper. She reconnects with her lost love, is a widow and is forced to do sleep with a rich client. She backs off when he wants to get physically violent with her.
Clearly borrowing tropes from Shane Meadows, Pleasure Island is an unoriginal tripe of a movie that practically lifts its work from those who have come beforehand. Tiresome and exasperating, this maddening rehash of the same plot is just so dull and boring. By the time the climax hits, you’re already bored of the characters and the story. There is no substance here that hasn’t been placed onto the palates of audiences everywhere and chewed until it’s nothing but inedible fat. Pleasure Island isn’t even good in “showcasing a darker side of Britain and its crime” which movies such as this get wet thinking about. Instead, it chooses to weakly hobble along with an abundance of clichés and trails along overused dialogue until the film eventually bleeds out.
And don’t there there is Jess. Now, not meaning to spoil the film (though you probably know where this is going), Jess starts the film off as a single mother who is also a stripper. She reconnects with her lost love, is a widow and is forced to do sleep with a rich client. She backs off when he wants to get physically violent with her.
Jess isn’t a character. She’s a cardboard cut-out that has been dressed with as much predictability as possible. She’s a catalyst for Dean to take action which means she’ll be used and abused to fuel his rage. As she is, literally, slammed against the walls as the bad guys take lumps out of her, it is an unnerving and unnecessary arc that only serves as a reason for Dean to go kill some people. Didn’t anyone teach the writers that copying someone else's work will always mean you make the same mistakes? This is the worst to carry on through from prior efforts and it is alarmingly tedious to watch.
Stifling and poorly acting, this frustrating strain of a film takes a leap into the crime drama sea that and drowns as the tropes it clings to weighs it down. The stoic Dean is desperately dull and Ian Sharp struggles with the poor script whilst Doctor Who alum Samuel Anderson’s awful Grimsby accent is a caricature that irritates immediately. Pleasure Island is a mash of everything we’ve already seen and doesn’t do anything to break out of that box. If you really want an inventive British independent drama then go back and see Meadow’s Dead Man’s Shoes or for recent escapades into the dark heart of British cinema, take a look at Gerard Johnson’s Hyena.
But Pleasure Island isn’t worth the ticket. It’s like going round the rollercoaster for the hundredth time.
Stifling and poorly acting, this frustrating strain of a film takes a leap into the crime drama sea that and drowns as the tropes it clings to weighs it down. The stoic Dean is desperately dull and Ian Sharp struggles with the poor script whilst Doctor Who alum Samuel Anderson’s awful Grimsby accent is a caricature that irritates immediately. Pleasure Island is a mash of everything we’ve already seen and doesn’t do anything to break out of that box. If you really want an inventive British independent drama then go back and see Meadow’s Dead Man’s Shoes or for recent escapades into the dark heart of British cinema, take a look at Gerard Johnson’s Hyena.
But Pleasure Island isn’t worth the ticket. It’s like going round the rollercoaster for the hundredth time.
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