Dirty Weekend (1993) User Reviews

Not What You're Expecting

[alliescakes · 6/10 · 7 August 2006]

I saw this movie years ago, when it first came out in the theater. My boyfriend at the time thought it would be a sexually charged thriller as the title suggests, a "Basic Instinct" of sorts. Boy was he in for a surprise! This woman has been hit on, molested and generally pushed around be every creepy guy she comes in contact with, including her dentist. Finally, she has enough of all these idiot men she comes in contact with and starts brutally killing them off. I did enjoy watching this, but part of the reason may have been watching my boyfriend squirm throughout the entire film. I think this film will definitely send a message out loud and clear--Guys, behave yourselves, or else!

Entertaining vigilante film.

[poolandrews · 6/10 · 12 March 2011]

Dirty Weekend starts starts in London as Bella (Lia Williams) discovers that her boyfriend is cheating on her, Bella decides to move down to Brighton by the seaside to be near her best friend Marion (Miriam Kelly). Bella rents a flat & gets a job as a secretary but becomes terrified of the man (Rufus Sewell) watching her from across the road, he calls her & threatens her while describing his sexual fantasies. The police are unable & unwilling to help & after an encounter with an Iranian therapist Bella decides to take matters into her own hands. Bella breaks into the man's flat & brutally murders him with a hammer, however Bella liked the feeling & carries on killing any man that she sense are a threat or try to take advantage of her...

This English production was co-written, co-produced & directed by Michael Winner who made the classic vigilante film Death Wish (1974) with Charles Bronson a couple of decades earlier, Dirty Weekend is basically Death Wish but with a 90's feminist twist where it's a woman dishing out the revenge in a world (well, Brighton) full of sleazy scumbag men. Adapted from the novel by Helen Zahavi the central character Bella was apparently a prostitute in the novel but changed to a mild mannered career women for the film, Zahavi must have been dumped by a man or ripped-off or something since every single male character in Dirty Weekend is a sleaze bag, a liar, a cheater, a sexual rapist, an abuser, a mutilating killer or just an immoral chauvinist out for what they can get. I can't say Dirty Weekend is a brilliant film or a deep film or a meaningful film or even a convincing film but it is an entertaining one. Some of the sharp dialogue drifts between being quite menacing & unintentionally hilarious, Rufus Sewell's dirty phone caller gets some great lines while he masturbates off screen which are pure low budget porn gold. Bella doesn't kick in to full vigilante mode until about the forty fifth minute but from that moments she meets all sorts of undesirable character's including a fat professor, a slimy dentist, a serial killer & a gang of thugs who hate people from Liverpool. The reasons & motivations given for Bella snapping are rather simplistic & not that deep but the feeling that she has come to the end of the line with no prospect of police help is quite well made, the suggestion that to become a vigilante is the only option left open to Bella is quiet effectively put across. Running at just under 100 minutes long Dirty Weekend moves along at a nice pace, while not particularly exciting or captivating there are enough bizarre & quirky moments to keep one entertained from Bella's rambling self justifying narration to her sexy outfits to act as bait to lure the scum of Brighton towards her to some of the seduction techniques used by both Bella the hunter & her prey. By the way, it's not as easy as Dirty Weekened makes out to buy a gun here in the UK. The open ended climax left things open for a sequel which I doubt we will ever see, having said that Bella took little precaution while murdering her way across Brighton & should have been caught by the police.

Dirty Weekend caused a lot of controversy when it was originally released, the British media went to town on this & generally bashed it & called it pornographic. Actress Lia Williams never undresses & apart from a couple of obviously simulated sex acts one would struggle to call it pornographic, Dirty Weekend was obviously described as such by people who had never seen it. Originally released theatrically uncut here in the UK the following video release was cut but about a minute & twenty seconds, only four scenes were shortened & none completely cut whatever some may say. I just saw the full uncut version (the complete hammer murder, the complete plastic bag death & forced fellatio in a car) & none of the extra footage is that noticeable. The hammer murder is as gory as it gets, Bella stabs a man to death but otherwise there's not that much violence to be seen. I guess it was the mixing of sexual & violent themes often within the same scenes that caused the problems although I am convinced it would be passed uncut if submitted to the BBFC today. While the classic vigilante flick Death Wish was set in New York, a dark place full of corruption & crime Dirty Weekend is takes place in the quaint seaside town of Brighton! Hardly renowned as a hotbed of crime & filth.

Filmed on location in Brighton this probably had a quite a low budget but there's a pretty good cast here including Rufus Sewell, David McCallum, Sean Pertwee, Christopher Ryan & Ian Richardson. Lia Williams sounds like she is dubbed a lot of the time but puts in a good performance.

Dirty Weekend is a Death Wish rip-off with a feminist role reversal twist, while a strangely enjoyably perverse revenge thriller that has no subtlety at all maybe it's not a film for everyone. I liked it in a bizarre honest sort of way.

Enough is enough.

[lost-in-limbo · 6/10 · 6 June 2008]

Controversial? What's the big deal? Sure it comes across as tasteless, perverse and unsavoury, but really the underlining black humour in the smarting script and a revenge fantasy layout does mildly soften the savage intentions. When released; the British (sort-of) feminine vigilante 'Dirty Weekend' caused a real uproar. I seen it labelled as pornographic, but it doesn't really come close. It can get dark, daring and nasty, but never arouses. The raving screenplay by Michael Winner and Helen Zahavi (which it's based upon her novel) is lyrically intrusive, can be offbeat, grotesque (you'll know when) and wears its feminist liberation proudly. Surprisingly I thought it was well thought out even with some patchy inclusions and silly developments. However the absurdity it succumbs to makes for an uneven balance between the humour and serious matter. The waxing between the characters was always amusing, especially when the tables are finally turned. Watching the vulnerable nature of our single female protagonist slowly transform and breathe growing confidence (going from a shivering victim to a sardonic murderer) is done in a wonderfully hardy portrayal by Lia Williams. Some might finde her superficially bland, but I found her suitably incisive. The majority of the men come off as filth, unpleasant and sleazy. David McCallum is substantially good as the fractious dentist and Rufus Sewell is fairly unnerving as the grubby pervert. Sean Pertwee also gets a taste of his own medicine. Director Michael Winner's frank handling is gusty and his sledgehammer approach productively works along side the no-holds barred material. Sometimes the way it was shot it felt like a cheap TV movie. Mainly due to the editing. While the crude violence has a malicious streak, it isn't overly explicit or even convincing, but it can evoke severity. David Fanshawe's eclectically uncanny and soulful music score is an odd one to behold. At times it has a majestic air, but other cues are a complete mess. Interesting low-brow and misogynistic exploitation nonetheless.

"My mouth doesn't f***, I don't f*** with my mouth."

[The_Movie_Cat · 2/10 · 31 March 2002]

WARNING: REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

Any film with the words "Michael" and "Winner" in close proximity has to have a touch of class. This is no more true than with Dirty Weekend, a feminist empowerment film where Lia Williams gets her tits out and kills lots of men. The complex ethical debates of a vigilante lifestyle are ably challenged ("I thought you could be gentle in the jungle" Lia argues at one point) and Winner shows an innate and emphatic understanding of the female psyche. Lines like "all men are stronger than me" shows a man instinctively in touch with a feminine side.

Comprising an OTT soundtrack that wouldn't sound out of place in 30s Hollywood with a script that was less written, more sh*t onto paper, this is genius filmmaking all the way through. Helmed with the directorial panache of an anal cyst and populated by actors cut out of a Cornflakes packet, this is a genuine modern classic. See the interview scene set to "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" by Dead or Alive! Thrill to the trite overdubbed narration! Joy to the sloppy camera angles and grimy film stock! Gasp at the thespic constipation of Lia Williams!

The plot, of course, is razor sharp. Within a day of being dumped by a roguish love rat (who utters "Toodle pip!" as a send-off) Bella (Williams) is getting dirty phonecalls from a nutcase who lives opposite. In order to protect herself she sees an Iranian clairvoyant played by Ian Richardson (I'm not making this up). He "opens up possibilities" by giving her a switchblade.

However, she's put off when the nutter (Rufus Sewell, the only cast member to maintain dignity), tells her he's got a bottle of acid. So alarmed is she by this development that Williams's acting skills go into overdrive and she looks like a woman who forgot to buy an extra carton of milk from the greengrocer's. To rectify the situation she goes over to his house, accompanied by a jaunty country theme, and caves his head in with a hammer. Cut to a couple of scenes later and she's fantasising about bazookas and flame-throwers. (No, I'm really not making this up). Unsuccessful, she's approached by a Mr. Brown in the middle of the street who, for £400, sells her a "shooter". The story then dovetails into a scene where she gets a genuine desire for an obese man (Michael Cule, awful) with breasts and lets him take her from behind. A sophisticated exchange then takes place after he accidentally places himself up her anus, then loses his erection. After laughing at his impotence, he beats her, because, well, you know, all men are scum. To make up for this, she places a plastic bag over his head to suffocate him.

However, this leaves her with a chipped tooth, so she goes to the dentist to put it right. Unfortunately for Bella, her dentist is a psychotically Cockney David McCallum, who forces her to perform oral sex in a car park, with a "I hope you're hungry, cos it's time for din-dins. Open wide!"

Even old bag women aren't safe from the ubiquitous rapists that are men. When a rape gang (made up of Jon Pertwee's son and Mike from The Young Ones) come across her, they decide who'll get to perform the deed with a curt "let's have a look at granny's fanny." Fortunately, Bella is on the case and shoots them all in cold blood. After her killing spree, she chucks away her "shooter" into the sea. Less fortunately for her, a rapist has been watching her (they're everywhere, you see) and forcibly enters her with a helpful "that's my fist." Luckily, Bella's still got her unused switchblade from the Iranian, so she stabs him eight times in an amusement arcade. What a galling load of misogynistic tripe.

Winner apologists will probably say this is an ironic black comedy. I must admit, I did laugh lots... though probably not for any of the reasons the film's makers intended. Class. Absolute, 100% pure class. 2/10.

Sickening and inept vigilante flick.

[McBuff · 1/10 · 3 July 2001]

A reverse gender "Death Wish" has doe-eyed Lia Williams as Bella, who encounters several oversexed, repulsive men, who are all interested in one thing (and it ain't football!). Hard to believe that director Winner actually made a handful of decent films in the early seventies, because this film is offensively stupid and violent with giant lapses in logic and character motivation. Every male character (=caricature) is presented as a horny git, who eventually suffers Bella's revenge, but so what? After the Death Wish sequels, Bullseye, Parting Shots and now this, Winner should definitely NOT quit his day job as a restaurant critic.

0 (of ****)

Forget the film. Read the book.

[Blueylouey · 21 September 2002]

A gross and garish movie whose clumsy editing, cheapskate production values and dire lighting are its only memorable features. A lot of acting talent is wasted in this truly execrable work. The director took a powerful, compelling and blackly comic novel and artistically trashed it. Best advice: Forget the film. Read the book.

fat man must die for being fat

[karlericsson · 2/10 · 11 February 2010]

A fat man, naked and, yes, ugly in his fatness, gives the heroine of this film two slaps for laughing at him in his nakedness. For that he gets a plastic bag over his head and is asphyxiated. Other men in this film treat the heroine worse but are not killed, for instance like the elderly scholar that dumps her. The whole point of the movie, if there was one, was that the viewer should be able to sympathize with the heroine, the way we did with Charles Bronson in "Death Wish". But how can we sympathize with pure fascism? Take away the scene with the fat man and you have, actually, a film that is decently indecent. Michael Winner is naughty and when he is that at the expense of power, everything is OK. This is only partly so here. Being naughty with the poor and downtrodden (like fat people) is decidedly not OK and a sure sign for bad character.

Mucky Night In - OK British Vigilante Film

[ninjaalexs · 6/10 · 6 November 2021]

Michael Winner's Dirty Weekend is his take on films like Ms. 45 as well as a middle finger to the critics who complained about sexual violence in his earlier box office smash, Death Wish.

Dirty Weekend is rarely talked about even among fans of British crime films and Britsploitation. It is cheap, it is nasty and despite Winner's reputation as a bad director (he's not) it's actually well paced and there's some decent performances especially from Lia Williams, the housewife next door turned vigilante. Production wise it has a bit of a TV Movie feel, which is a shame. For some reason it kept me gripped for the running time, maybe because I wondered what I would see next. It does feature graphic violence and sexual assault; nobody seriously believed that this is a feminist film; it's exploitation, but that sits great with me.

It's nowhere near in the same league as Death Wish which has an explosive scene on a subway train, easily one of the most memorable of the tough crime films of the 1970s. By comparison the show stopper in Dirty Weekend is a nasty forced oral sex scene (simulated) with vomiting. See what I mean? Ms. 45 by comparison is dark and gritty, but much more even in its tone; Dirty Weekend is a bit uneven; part seaside postcard, part brutal rape revenge film - even the film's title is an innuendo.

See it if you like this sort of thing, but it's far from a great film. The version I saw was an uncut VHS, not sure how the DVD from Universal is. Death Wish had a remake in 2018, I can't see this relative obscurity getting the same Hollywood treatment.

DEATH WISH On A Menstreul Cycle ? Not Really

[Theo Robertson · 3/10 · 8 January 2005]

Despite having a vigilante theme it's very difficult to believe that Michael Winner had anything to do with this movie . All through the running the subtext screams " Men are sexual sadists , you can't trust any of them , kill them all " which is far closer to a deluded feminist world view , and what ever you think of Mr Winner there's no way you can describe him as a feminist . But the penny drops the more the film goes on when you realise it's not meant to be a serious film and couldn't have been made by a serious film maker

The plot revolves around a woman called Bella who moves to Brighton and is the victim of a stalker who phones her when she's alone , though the stalker is both written and played in such an over the top manner that he's somewhat difficult to take seriously . Bella then takes advice from an Iranian clairvoyent ( As I'm sure anyone in her situation would do ) then it's revenge against the penis people all the way

As you can imagine I had this sussed out as a role reversal of DEATH WISH but about two thirds of the way through the entire tone of the movie changes when we're introduced to " The lady in red and spanky fat boy " . I wasn't convinced farcical black comedy was part of the masterplan at development stage , it's like Winner and co have got fed up making a straightforward revenge drama and had decided to lighten things up a little . Unfortunately the production started off bad and this black comedy element makes the film even worse

DIRTY WEEKEND is a bad movie , badly written , badly produced and badly cast ( Lia Williams goes through the movie with one expression ) but what makes it really bad is the offensive portrayal of men . There are a lot of nasty b@stards out there but it's ridiculous the way Bella runs into every creep , pervert and rapist in the country which gives coincidence a bad name . Though perhaps the movie isn't supposed to be taken seriously and I guess some people might see the movie as a guilty pleasure

From DEATH WISH director

[searchanddestroy-1 · 7/10 · 2 October 2022]

I perfer watching this Michael Winner's film, one of his very last, made in UK, than the garbage, which he was involved in during the eighties for the infamous Cannon Group company and Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. Actually Michael Winner lost his soul by the beginning of the eighties, or late seventies. His highlight was during the seventies, with Charles Bronson, but not only. So, enough talk, let's get to this one; the subject may remind some kind of smooth, cheesy DEATH WISH, but only if you wish to compare. Same basic scheme and this gives something weird, hesitating between gruesome murder scenes and light touch sequences. Directing and acting are purely British. Yes, revenge murder scenes are worth and I would say they alone justify the viewing of this film.

Even more misogynist than Winner's Death Wish movies

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 25 June 2016]

The box proudly proclaimed this to be Michael Winner's best film.

It isn't. In fact, it's the worst I've seen of his yet, an appallingly bad, unfunny, excruciatingly scripted vigilante thriller based on a once-controversial novel. You can immediately sense Winner's interest: after all, this is little more than a version of DEATH WISH with a female vigilante instead of a bloke. But somewhere along the line, Winner's talent for direction faded and he was left making misogynistic movies that usually sank without trace.

There are two things I like about this film: the Brighton setting, which is different, and the cast. Somehow, in his later directing days, Winner was able to convince lots of once-weres to star in his low budget movies, and this is no exception. David McCallum turns up here, along with a blacked-up Ian Richardson, Christopher Ryan, Sylvia Sims, and best of all for me, Rufus Sewell in one of his earliest turns as a creepy pervert who enjoys making prank calls to the heroine. Lia Williams, as the businesswoman turned vigilante, is passable in the role if no great shakes.

The worst thing about this film is the script. It revels in crudity and offensiveness, without ever offering up anything new. The thrust of the storyline closes with the sub-plot involving Rufus Sewell's stalker, and from then on it gets more and more inane, more and more unbelievable. The scene in the car with David McCallum has to be the utter nadir of the film and I still feel ashamed to think of him taking the role. No wonder we don't see him on the screen much anymore. Realism goes out of the window and the point is lost entirely, along with the viewer.

Great film

[Thorsten-Krings · 8/10 · 1 February 2011]

Dirty weekend is a very well made film- as you would expect from Michael Winner. To sum it up, it is basically a feminist version of Death Wish about a woman who gets pushed around, experiences her own powerlessness and one day decides she's had enough. Needless to say that she then spends a weekend with a gun meeting a lot of creeps. Some of ther performances are great. David McCallum as psyohopathic dentist alone is worth watching the film. As always Winner plays effectively with audience by getting us to actually want her to pull the trigger. Of course, it is all black/and white in terms of morals and the likelihood of meeting such an assortment of scumbags in one weekend is not really that big. But all in all the film is well made. What impressed me most was the very effective use of music in the film. I found it remarkable that the French film "Baise Moi" allegedly a feminist masterpiece is a shameless rip off of Dirty Weekend, lifting complete scenbes from Winner's film.

Women are from Venus, men are from, erm, the sewer.

[hitchcockthelegend · 5/10 · 6 January 2015]

It's difficult to know if Dirty Weekend finds Michael Winner taking the rise out the urine, or if he genuinely feels he had something to say? And what of Helen Zahavi, author of the novel and in charge of the adaptation to screen here? What's her story - motivations et al? It's quite possibly that Helen and Michael at their respective humane cores were a match made in cinematic heaven, but how come Dirty Weekend just feels dirty, lazy dirty at that, a sort of shock for shocks sake as Zahavi gets to curry favour with the feminist movement and Winner gets to be seedy, with murder death kill and the grotesque thrown in for good measure.

Plot, for what it's worth, has dowdy Bella (Lia Williams) suddenly turn into a sexual vamp over night with a blood lust for offing all men who dare to leer and pester. In Brighton, the place of rock, candy floss and degenerate male members of the human race.

It would have been easy to root for Bella had she at the very least had acquaintances or drinks with some normal men, but it's hard to take seriously a film where every single bloke she meets is either troubled mentally, a sexually deviant, has a penchant for serial killing and etc etc. Even her best friend's husband is a milquetoast who probably should have been on Bella's hit list as well!

Winner achieved everything he hoped for with Dirty Weekend, the critics frothed at the mouth, the British censors sharpened their scissors, and crucially the film became a holy grail of uncut home formats for the intrigued and degenerates. It undeniably was shocking back on release, I mean when the broad sheet newspapers of Blighty are dissecting it frame by frame you know it's a fire-cracker piece of cinema.

Rufus Sewell can be forgiven as this is right at the start of his career (he is edgy, nutty and Anthony Perkins like), same for British legend Sean Pertwee, but what is David McCallum's excuse, Ian Richardson also? That Lia Williams is bold and cheeky with her performance saves the film from stinker hell, it's great to note that she carved out a strong career in British TV and still works today.

Hard to recommend and guaranteed to make you angry, but fair play to Winner, boy did he know how to punch buttons! 5/10

Rubbish

[filmbuff1970 · 1/10 · 24 May 2002]

This is no Oscar Winner its a Michael Winner.and its one of his worse this is a very phoney movie.It doesnt work as a thriller.it comes across as a womans death wish.Except no Woman would get into such silly adventures.its insultingly bad.Some truly vulgar scenes.Obviously some of the actors needed to pay the rent.1 out of 10

An incredibly overwrought, pompous farrago...

[Howlin Wolf · 1/10 · 19 October 2005]

... but then, what else would you expect from Michael Winner?? You'll usually find that regular use of voice-over as a narrative device is the last refuge of a director incapable of being economical; alien to visual or nuanced storytelling. The trend isn't bucked, such is the case here.

The world of he who orchestrates everything is colourless and grimy, with creeps populating every suburb. My word, he must have met some reprobates in his alternate lifestyles to have such a ceaselessly nihilistic outlook! Answers on a postcard gratefully received please, as to why the soundtrack apparently contains a didgeridoo. It's obvious that the person who composed it has no idea why...

A female version of "Death Wish" with even more specious motivations. Just what the '90's needed to teach us how to be civilised, and - this is more important - hopefully make better films for the new millennium!

"Murderers,victims and spectators"

[morrison-dylan-fan · 2/10 · 21 March 2011]

When I recently read up that in the 90s,one of the main people that was behind the making of the popular vigalanti- revenge genre, (Michael Winner) had made a film where,a woman was the lead viglanti,I started to anticipate,that I was about to see an extremely gripping,hard-hitting, brutal revenge film.As the film started to reach the end,I realised that the edginess that should have been the beating heart of the film,was unpredictable very muted.

The plot: After having gotten some very threatening phone calls,a woman who lives alone in a small flat (Bella) decides to get some help from her family and friends,on the best way to keep herself safe.To Bellas surprise,all of them tell her that instead of trying to get the creep to back off,she should instead be more "welcoming" to him,and be much more thankful that he is showing an interest in stalking and killing her!.With hearing this,Bella decides that if no one else is going to stand up for her,then she has to do it herself.Although when she starts going out for revenge,she suddenly starts to develop a huge appetite for murder...

View on the film: For the screenplay,writers Michael Winner and Helen Zahavi (who also wrote the book that the film is based on) disappointingly stay away from making the film into tough, rough"n" ready twisted "Girl Power" movie.Instead they change the films narrative into being a black comedy,which turns almost all of the supporting characters into very thin card-board cutouts,although the dialogue is not helped out by most of the cast not delivering the lines with a real relish,that would have made the comedic feel of the film a lot stronger.Whilst the BBFC have sadly cut out some of the "impact" shoots in the murder scenes,director Michael Winner is still able to give the movie a fun playfulness,with Bella being able to go to her "local gun shop" and buy a gun,as if she is just going out to buy her bread and milk from the local shop.For the most memorable killing (which involves a plastic bag)Winner is able to show a brief sign of the ruthlessness,that could have made this film into something very special.

Final view on the film: An enjoyable black comedy,that sadly lacks the anger,which it desperately needed.

Exceedingly baaaaaaaaddddddd film!

[the amorphousmachine · 1/10 · 20 February 2001]

This is seriously a contender for worse film of the century award! There really isn't much I can say about this film. I saw it ages ago, and it was an awful mess of a film! It's low-budget and it's directed by Michael Winner who also wrote this garbage! It's vulgar, vile and the characters are completely uninteresting, especially the main female character, who finds her purpose and goes around killing male scumbags. It seems every male she encounters is a potential rapist. I have no idea as to what Winner was trying to say in this movie, but it all seemed so unnecessary, and the lead actress was insipid. All I remember is waiting for this garbage to end. Avoid 'Dirty Weekend' like the plague!

No score...0 out *****!

An outrageously scurrilous film

[Afracious · 4/10 · 4 September 1999]

This is a nasty and crude little offering from Mr Winner, which has quite a lot of heinous and cruel male characters in it. All set amongst the splendid flowers and apparent tranquility that is Southern England. But no, we are treated to some despicable men, such as a two-timing rotter; a psychopathic threatening phone-caller; a lecherous copper; a randy, grotesquely obese chap; a dentist who forces a woman to give him fellatio; and three nefarious blokes who savour in trying to set fire to an old vagrant woman. The picture has a definite menacing air to it throughout, has the lead lady Bella is repeatedly threatened by the said men and takes revenge and eventually gets her justice. I'm not going to entirely condemn the film, it has some moments, but it is difficult to watch. Only really for vigilante and Michael Winner film fans.

A fun but sick film

[DoctorWhoUK · 10/10 · 10 December 2006]

I first saw this film at the cinema and found it quite funny in a sick sort of way. What I liked about it was the British feel to it. The story is a Death Wish type clone (Death Wish also directed by Mr Winner)it has some memorable characters in and also some memorable places from Brighton. If your after a bit of fun and don't mind some sick scenes you may like this. Also this film was banned from video release for a few years back in the mid 90's. There are some scenes cut out from the cinema release, but that does not affect the film in any way. Oh I also liked the soundtrack which suited the film very well. Even by today's standard this film has a dark and moody feel to it and may even find it's very own cult status one day.

Great film

[p-hynes · 8/10 · 22 March 2005]

There is a bad and good side to this film. Bad because of the detail i.e the lingering expressionless looks of Bella gets a bit over done and you're not sure what these mean in relation to the film sometimes. All the 'nasty' male characters she encounters are too obviously the entire(minority) arseholes of the male population...which in turn makes what happens the good side of the film.

Good because of the age old formula of the victim getting revenge on the bad guys is female . Even though it's all a little bit silly & OTT it's worth a watch if even just for the nasty bits. Is Bella tipped over the edge or just coolly enjoying her sadistic pursuits now? You decide...

A better movie than the title might suggest.

[Muttt · 10/10 · 27 September 2000]

This movie concentrates on one character (Bella) who decides to stop being a victim and go on the offensive. She takes out all the right people and all in a surreal fashion. I thought this was going to be a low-budget cheap-shot movie but was pleasantly surprised.

The Perfect Antidote To Bridget Jones!

[Shosanna_Dreyfus83 · 10/10 · 2 January 2011]

This Michael Winner directed movie, adapted from a novel by Helen Zahavi, is not your typical Death Wish style vigilante movie. Despite the scenic surrounding of Brighton, it's not quite your typical domestic British drama/comedy either but falls somewhere between those genres. For me it's like a hilarious antidote to the usual type of British film we get nowadays. It's almost like the main character in a British film like Happy Go Lucky (a very good Mike Leigh movie) or a similar film like Amelie was watching too many action movies and started carrying a gun around to solve her problems for the second half of the movie.

Unlike the typical vigilante plot, where the character is avenging an attack or rape on themselves or a loved one, this film merely has a succession of thoughts and events lead the main character Bella (played by Lia Williams) to simply wake up one morning and decide that she's had enough of being a mousy victim. No deaths of loved ones and after her first victim, no particular group of villains to seek out one by one. The start of the movie could almost be a domestic drama or comedy and could easily be about how a young woman finds love or makes peace with herself by moving to Brighton and making a new start, after another failed relationship with a self loving man. Soon though, it starts to take a horror or thriller twist when Bella discovers a peeping tom watching her intently from the building facing her back room. The situation begins to escalate, with threatening and sleazy phone calls and the pervert (played by Rufus Sewell) even sitting beside Bella on a park bench, threatening to break her hand in broad daylight. Bella's troubles with the peeping tom make up about the first half of the film and include her visiting a Iranian clairvoyant called Nimrod (played by Ian Richardson!) and becoming more confident to the point where she works out a very Rorschach style solution to her problem.

Then the film starts to become more like a random series of encounters with different and eccentric characters. The scene where Bella picks up a very overweight businessman in a hotel bar and goes back to his room, certainly isn't something that we'd have seen in the average vigilante movie (neither is the scene where Bella parades in her underwear pretending to fire her gun and get shot - like kids playing cowboy and Indians - although that part did remind me of a scene in The Harder They Come). This is also where the movie begins to get even more over the top and it's black comedy comes to the fore. Bella's encounters include David McCallum as a very sleazy and disturbed dentist (Little Shop Of Horrors homage?) and a group of yuppie thugs and would be rapists (in a scene that reminded me of A Clockwork Orange) whose number include Christopher Ryan (Mike from The Young Ones) and Sean (son of Jon) Pertwee, as well as a serial killer (previously mentioned in the film in passing).

It's a curious movie in some ways, stuck between genres and not quite what you'd expect from either. It reminded me a little of the Hammer House Of Horror TV series in tone or maybe some of the old Amicus movies. If you're expecting the typical vigilante movie then you may be disappointed that there's not enough conventional action or a group of baddies to be tracked down and eliminated (and the vigilante part of the movie only begins to come in about half way through the movie). I think it works best as a hilarious counterpoint or send up of the typical Mike Leigh, Bridget Jones or Four Weddings And A Funeral type of British movie. I had seen trailers for this film when it first came out but only recently decided to track it down. I hadn't realized it had been banned for two years in the UK. The DVD region 2 DVD release is cut (with the hammer murder being reduced to just one or two blows for instance). I loved this movie and thought it was a riot (and in some ways the fact that it wasn't quite the usual Death Wish clone was a pleasant and interesting surprise). I suspect some will just see it as a train wreck movie and will either hate it or find it "so bad it's good" for those reasons. Now I want a sequel where Bella takes her killing spree to Nazi occupied Paris, hee hee!

Classic Sex Themed Flick

[sydneyswesternsuburbs · 10/10 · 19 July 2011]

Director Michael Winner who also created other classic flicks, Death Wish II 1982, Death Wish 1974, Death Wish 3 1985 and Lawman 1971 has created another gem in Dirty Weekend.

Starring Lia Williams.

Also starring Rufus Sewell who was also in other classic flicks, Tristan + Isolde 2006 and Dark City 1998.

Also starring Sean Pertwee who was also in other classic flicks, Wilderness 2006, Equilibrium 2002, Dog Soldiers 2002 and Blue Juice 1995.

I enjoyed the sex and violence.

If you enjoyed this as much as I did then check out other classic sex themed flicks, Assault! Jack the Ripper 1976, Basic Instinct 1992, Star of David: Beauty Hunting 1979, Boogie Nights 1997, Caligula 1979, Captured for Sex 2 1986, Chinese Torture Chamber 1994, Crash 1996, Damage 1992, Deadgirl 2008, Fatal Attraction 1987, Flower and Snake 4: Rope Magic 1987, Hanzo the Razor: The Snare 1973, In the Realm of the Senses 1976, The Japanese Wife Next Door 2004, Naked Obsession 1990, Night Rhythms 1992, Poison Ivy III: The New Seduction 1997, Preaching to the Perverted 1997, Red to Kill 1994, Sex and Zen 1991, Sex is a Four Letter Word 1995, Teeth 2007, Wild Cactus 1993, Better Than Sex 2000, Vice Squad 1982, X 2011, Don Jon 2013, London to Brighton 2006, Unfaithful 2002, Zipper 2015, Naked 1993, Last Exit to Brooklyn 1989, Chloe 2009, The Last Seduction 1994, Knock Knock 2015, Wild Things 1998, X 2022 and Wonderland 2003.

I write this to warn others

[paddyshack · 26 October 2001]

I only saw this as I was writing a review for a college magazine at the time and thought it would be easier to write about a bad movie than a good one. I didn't realise just how easy it wou ld be. I saw it on a wet afternoon in a mutliplex, and 4 of the 6 people in the cinema walked out. I wish I was one. Awful in every possible respect, if Edison had known that this would happen to his great invention he would have hid the patent. Not out of curiosity, masochism or desperation should you give this a look.

Dirty Weekend - Excellent Film by Michael Winner

[SirNevilleCawasCyrusBardoliwalla · 10/10 · 16 January 2020]

Shortly after Bella moves into her own flat in Brighton, she finds out that she is being spied on and generally harassed by a man living across from her. Finally driven to solving the problem with a hammer, she realises she is then ready for a crusade against other such problem males. Dirty weekend is a very well made film as you would expect from Michael Winner. To sum it up, it is basically a feminist version of Death Wish about a woman who gets pushed around, experiences her own powerlessness and one day decides she's had enough. Needless to say that she then spends a weekend with a gun meeting a lot of creeps. Some of ther performances are great. David McCallum as psyohopathic dentist alone is worth watching the film. As always Winner plays effectively with audience by getting us to actually want her to pull the trigger. Of course, it is all black and white in terms of morals and the likelihood of meeting such an assortment of scumbags in one weekend is not really that big. But all in all the film is extremely well made. What impressed me most was the very effective use of music in the film. I found it remarkable that the French film "Baise Moi" allegedly a feminist masterpiece is a shameless rip off of Dirty Weekend, lifting complete scenes from Winner's film.

Review Courtesy of Neville Cawas Bardoliwalla OBE