Ray Cooney is, I'm sure, a thoroughly decent guy. That said, he should be publicly flogged for inflicting this desperately unfunny attempt at comedy on the cinema-going public.
Based on his own play which ran for several years in London, the material is tired and dated with no apparent attempt to drag it into the 21st Century. From the opening credits, it is clear that he has no talent for direction, even with the assistance of co-director John Luton whose only previous directing credit was a 'video' made 11 years earlier. Why two inexperienced directors were paired together on this is beyond me but the end result is not so much a car crash as a full-blown motorway pile-up.
Danny Dyer is box office poison anyway but put him alongside former breakfast TV presenter Denise Van Outen and ex-Girl's Aloud singer Sarah Harding and you have the shakiest foundations upon which to build a movie. The film also includes an embarrassingly bad supporting role from Neil Morrisey and numerous cameos from just about everyone who was anyone in British television back in the '70s. Norman Wisdom at least had the good sense to die before he could be offered a role. Several of those who took part may wish they had followed his lead.
The film begins with some rapid-fire vignettes of Danny Dyer at work in a ham-fisted attempt to portray him as an all-round decent bloke and thereby excuse the fact he is a bigamist. In a cringe-making opening sequence we see a bag lady (a heavily-disguised Judi Dench) being mugged by two youths who conveniently drag her out of a quiet lane to mug her in view of witnesses which include our hero. Why anyone would be mugging a bag lady in the first place is beyond me but let's not dwell on that too long. In the course of rescuing her, our hero is sideswiped by a misplaced swing of her handbag and is concussed, waking up later in hospital. Now the fun really starts... I wish.
From this point on what we get is a frantic farce with everyone running back and forth from one location to another, shouting at the top of their voices and mugging for the camera at every opportunity. Oh, I almost forgot - Danny Dyer's character stands on a rake at one point and it springs up and strikes him on the head. Tragically, that's about as sophisticated as the whole thing gets.
The final word should go to Ray Cooney himself who appears in an uncredited cameo delivering the rather ironic line: "You think this is funny?"
Based on his own play which ran for several years in London, the material is tired and dated with no apparent attempt to drag it into the 21st Century. From the opening credits, it is clear that he has no talent for direction, even with the assistance of co-director John Luton whose only previous directing credit was a 'video' made 11 years earlier. Why two inexperienced directors were paired together on this is beyond me but the end result is not so much a car crash as a full-blown motorway pile-up.
Danny Dyer is box office poison anyway but put him alongside former breakfast TV presenter Denise Van Outen and ex-Girl's Aloud singer Sarah Harding and you have the shakiest foundations upon which to build a movie. The film also includes an embarrassingly bad supporting role from Neil Morrisey and numerous cameos from just about everyone who was anyone in British television back in the '70s. Norman Wisdom at least had the good sense to die before he could be offered a role. Several of those who took part may wish they had followed his lead.
The film begins with some rapid-fire vignettes of Danny Dyer at work in a ham-fisted attempt to portray him as an all-round decent bloke and thereby excuse the fact he is a bigamist. In a cringe-making opening sequence we see a bag lady (a heavily-disguised Judi Dench) being mugged by two youths who conveniently drag her out of a quiet lane to mug her in view of witnesses which include our hero. Why anyone would be mugging a bag lady in the first place is beyond me but let's not dwell on that too long. In the course of rescuing her, our hero is sideswiped by a misplaced swing of her handbag and is concussed, waking up later in hospital. Now the fun really starts... I wish.
From this point on what we get is a frantic farce with everyone running back and forth from one location to another, shouting at the top of their voices and mugging for the camera at every opportunity. Oh, I almost forgot - Danny Dyer's character stands on a rake at one point and it springs up and strikes him on the head. Tragically, that's about as sophisticated as the whole thing gets.
The final word should go to Ray Cooney himself who appears in an uncredited cameo delivering the rather ironic line: "You think this is funny?"