atreus-3

Oh Lordy, Lordy. Health tragedy strikes yet another woman who is doing her best to do good with the sick/under privileged/ maimed. As she gets progressively worse you can just see the agents/scouts queuing up to get the movie rights before she snuffs it or gets run over after losing her white stick. Then hubby gets sick too (perhaps in sympathy, perhaps to get some of the attention from her), bits of him are excavated/removed but he pegs it anyway. WOW!! A double tearjerker. Always playing the woman she finds herself a new meal ticket. Despite being a fellow with a Uni degree he throws logic/intelligence to the wind and takes on this burden, deary me .... she must have been very very good in bed, there's no other explanation. What a load of rubbish.

This movie is set in the USA that all "merkins" (as George Bush calls them) wish existed. He's an LA cop, he loved her, she loved him, she got shot, he went to pieces (why would anyone go to pieces over a woman? They're like buses, there'll be another one along in a minute). Then there's the obligatory 'folksy' paw, the rebellious teenage daughter who wants a 'motor sickle', the ex-girlfriend from years past before he met his shot wife. As soon as you see her, red-head, doctor, great chest ......... it's on from day 1. The film inexorably grinds on to the traditional finish of the triumph of good over evil which even involves his perfect skinned son. Then there's the inevitable sugar scene where his wife's ghost turns up for a chat. What a load of absolute garbage.

I suspect that this film originated as an introductory pilot for a TV show that never passed the credibility test.

The main plot is fine .... fairground going broke .... with lots of opportunity for a number of episodes as the lad gets out of trouble in Arthur Daley style. But somewhere along the line it seems to get lost in a number of improbable sub-plots.

The character of his oversexed oppo who attempts to trail one of the many folks who are suing the fairground is beyond belief.

Given a little more serious treatment and confined to one major plot line this movie had potential both in its own right and as a forerunner of a series.

As it is .... it fails.

From the very early scenes it is obvious that this is going to turn into a "blag gone wrong" movie.

One smart criminal has recruited a "gang" of sub-normal associates. When he goes to pick up the driver we are confronted by a scene in which the drivers daughter turns up after an "all-nighter" with her policeman boyfriend. Policeman boyfriend !!!! Yeah, there's the standard father-daughter row, and from there it starts to go downhill rapidly. The dullest of the group is allotted the task of grabbing the "large" notes and proceeds to fail at this simple task, the absolute limit of 4 minutes in the target blows out through idiocy. And on and on and on .... every scene more unbelievable than the preceding one.

Of course there's the obligatory "love-interest" .... the woman keeps bobbing up every ten minutes or so, nothing to do with the plot, nothing to do with anything except our mastermind's early life which is totally irrelevant. All she does is to divert from the rapidly unraveling thread of the film, but it does give you time to go and get a cup of coffee.

Then the various shootouts start. Somehow the film maker got London confused with Dodge City. We have a street gunfight with the (unarmed) British police and a gunfight in a police station.

Deary me. What a sad mish-mash of a movie. Unbelievable.