High Heels and Low Lifes
Crime Has Never Been So Attractive
Mel Smith’s directorial career has seen some highs (The Tall Guy) and some lows (Bean). With High Heels and Low Lifes it looks like he’s on an upswing.
Minnie Driver plays Shannon, an NHS nurse, dedicated, overworked and underpaid.
On arriving home on the evening of her birthday she finds that her nerd of a boyfriend, Ray has not only forgotten her birthday but is also more concerned with playing around with his eavesdropping equipment (a scanner attached to a sampler - he’s an artist, you just don’t understand) than with taking her out. The inevitable argument ensues, Ray storms out and Shannon heads out to find her friend Frances (Mary McCormack), a struggling American actress.
After a night on the town, the two women eventually stagger back to Shannon’s flat where they notice that Ray’s scanner is still switched on. So they listen in…
… And hear a mobile phone conversation describing a bank robbery nearby.
Their first reaction is to head to the local police station to report what they’ve heard. Here they hit a brick wall - the duty sergeant is busy, overstretched and not inclined to listen to some story from a couple of drunken women. He largely ignores them until Shannon manages to drag Frances out of the station and back to her flat.
When the robbery is reported the following day, the two women eventually agree to try and extort some money out of the robbers. And this is where the fun begins…
I liked this film. Granted, it’s not the most original of plots - innocents get caught up in a caper, find themselves out of their depth, but come up trumps in the end - but its well executed. The jokes are funny and the villains are both realistic and menacing enough to be believable. Given the number of ‘comedy-dramas’ I’ve seen that are neither funny nor dramatic, this alone makes for a refreshing change.
The balance here is achieved by not trying to make all characters leap through all of the hoops. The two detectives, Tremaine and McGill (played by Mark Williams and Kevin Eldon), for example, are bumbling, incompetent and played entirely for laughs, leaving the likes of Kevin MacNally as ruthlessly sadistic gang leader Mason, to maintain the necessary tension.
All in all, High Heels and Low Lifes achieves what it intends to do, and provides 85 minutes of lightweight entertainment. If you are looking for an easygoing comedy thriller, you could do a lot worse than this one.
Tuesday 09 Jul 2002 | Paul Pritchard | Comedy, Crime
