BRITAIN has produced plenty of attractive actors, but also many terrible movies for them to be in. Here are some of the dubious Brit films you suffered through to ogle a star.
Jaime Winstone, Kidulthood (2006)
Kidulthood is ostensibly a grittily realistic portrayal of teenage life in London. If so, every day in the capital for the under-20s is a bleak, terrifying vortex of gang violence, muggings, suicide, prostituting yourself for drugs, gun crime, beatings and having your face slashed. Jaime is definitely the highlight of the film, mainly because the rest of it makes you want to kill yourself.
Sean Bean, Outlaw (2007)
Sean was rough-hewn top totty back in the day, which probably spurred a few rentals of this then-topical film about a vigilante battling the local criminal underclass. Unfortunately before Sean starts slaughtering ASBO rat boys with an AK-47 it suddenly turns into a boring, generic crime thriller. Better to stick with Sharpe’s Rifles, where Sean at least takes his top off.
Sienna Miller, Layer Cake (2004)
Not terrible but somewhat overrated, Layer Cake allegedly features Sienna Miller. She’s actually in it for about six minutes out of 105. The rest of the film is an unrealistic, unnecessarily complicated thriller with the hackneyed premise ‘I’m a businessman whose commodity happens to be cocaine’. There may not be much Sienna, but there’s plenty of Daniel Craig being a glum bastard as usual. It’s lucky he gets shot at the end or Sienna’s character would be stuck with him indefinitely. (Spoiler warning.)
Jude Law, Shopping (1994)
British directors can’t leave the f**king zeitgeist alone, so when ram-raiding was in the news we got this. Set in the near future for some reason, Billy (Jude) and Jo (Sadie Frost) go ram-raiding in a futuristic car known as a ‘BMW 3 Series’. Loads of people like Jonathan Pryce are in it, but it’s still shit. The good news is that it launched the career of director Paul WS Anderson, without whom there would be no Resident Evil films, and that would be a great loss to art and indeed humanity.
Georgina Chapman, The Business (2005)
If you’re struggling to place Ms Chapman, she’s the very attractive woman who was frequently pictured with Harvey Weinstein due to being married to him. But years earlier she was the love interest in this mediocre Costa del Crime thriller with Danny Dyer. Despite her presence, it’s a slog. Lads’ magazine Front liked it because it had ‘more swearing than Scarface’. Strangely Roger Ebert never used this metric when judging a film.
Sean Pertwee, The Reckoning (2020)
Sean Pertwee is a good-looking chap and it’s surprising he doesn’t have a bigger female fanbase, although that may be related to appearing in countless ropey British horror films like this. It’s 1665 and Sean plays a witch hunter who unconvincingly tortures a woman accused of witchcraft. For a film involving the infamous ‘Pear of Anguish’ torture device and Satan himself showing up, it’s surprisingly unmemorable.
Leslie Ash, Quadrophenia (1979)
A great film if you were a Mod revivalist, with Vespas, Purple Hearts and music by The Who. However Jimmy the Mod’s mental anguish is a bit exhausting, so it’s a relief when Steph (Leslie Ash) shows up and shags him against a wall during a riot. Despite this romantic start to their relationship, things don’t pan out with Steph, and ultimately Jimmy has to reject the Mod lifestyle by ceasing to idolise Sting and driving a symbolic scooter off a cliff. Well, don’t we all?
