The 51st State
*
Cinema
Releases - December 7, 2001
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 18. 98
minutes. Directed by Ronny Yu. Written by Stel Pavlou. Starring Samuel L.
Jackson, Robert Carlyle, Emily Mortimer, Sean Pertwee, Rhys Ifans, Meat Loaf
Aday, Ricky Tomlinson.
Samuel L. Jackson wears a kilt throughout
"The 51st State", and at the end of the movie there is a title
card that declares, "No one ever found out why he wore a kilt." And then
there is a scene that sort of does explain it. You get the idea how much
thought went into this movie.
Jackson plays Elmo, a brilliant pharmacologist
who got arrested for possession of marijuana thirty years ago and has been
ineligible for an honest scientific job since. His employer is now a Los
Angeles drugs baron played by Meat Loaf, who uses Jackson to produce his
supply and create new recipes.
"The 51st State" begins with Meat Loaf discovering
that Jackson has skipped town just before the proposed unveiling of his new
drug, which is supposed to be fifty-one times more stimulant than cocaine,
fifty-one times more hallucinogenic than acid, and capable of releasing fifty-one
times more dopamine than ecstasy. Meat Loaf realises that Jackson must have
run off to sell the formula to someone else, and after going all red in the
face and shouting like a constipated dinosaur, he orders Jackson found and
captured.
Jackson goes to Liverpool and meets up with Robert
Carlyle, an errand-runner for the local crime bosses. The ridiculous-looking
Ricky Tomlinson plays one of these godfathers, and we wince in embarrassment
as soon as he appears onscreen, expecting to be taken seriously despite his
cheesy moustache and fake tan. Then there is a lot of shooting, and Jackson
and Carlyle spend the rest of the movie trying to escape Meat Loaf's
international assassins, find a buyer for the drug formula, and figure out
Carlyle's ex-girlfriend, who may be friend or foe.
The movie features a lot of bad Scouse accents
-- Emily Mortimer, who plays that ex-girlfriend, achieves the dubious honour
of switching between Liverpudlian and Californian voices that are both
unconvincing. We also get treated to a car chase filmed so incompetently
that it chooses to cut between a bonnet and some panicky faces, but no road.
And it's hard to be entertained by these characters, who are portrayed as
heroes despite the fact that they're knee-deep in the drugs trade. A twist
near the end informs us that things aren't as bad as they seem, but that
hasn't stopped us from being bothered for the previous hour and a
half.
COPYRIGHT©
2001 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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