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Sex Lives of the Potato Men | |||
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R E V I E W B Y R I C H C L I N E |
dir-scr Andy Humphries with Johnny Vegas, Mackenzie Crook, Mark Gatiss, Dominic Coleman, Kate Robbins, Lucy Davis, Julia Davis, Angela Simpson, Nicola Reynolds, Helen Latham, Nick Holder, Barry Aird release UK 20.Feb.04 Entertainment 04/UK 1h23 ![]() Sex-starved: Gatiss, Vegas, Crook and Coleman. ![]() ![]() | ||
![]() It centres on the antics of four brainless guys who deliver potatoes to Birmingham chip shops: Dave (Vegas) is in the process of splitting up with his wife (Simpson) and looking forward to some wild sex for a change. Ferris (Crook) seems to sleep with every woman he meets, including his landlady (Robbins), who's also his former mother-in-law. Jeremy (Gatiss) is still obsessed with the girl (Lucy Davis) who dumped him, to the point of kidnapping her dog. And Tolly (Coleman) has been left with some very strange obsessions after his wife left him, so turns to a chatline for help. The title basically describes the film exactly. And before the titles are finished we've already been greeted with "hilarious" references to carrots, melons, gherkins, hot dogs and squirting ketchup. Reviving this genre isn't a bad idea, but these films aren't as easy to make as they appear. So while there are a few funny lines of dialog and a tiny whiff of charm in the cast, this is like a bad sitcom stretched on and on as it stumbles through each tasteless scene, literally scraping the barrel for laughs that never come. And despite a continuous stream of sex talk and sex scenes of every style imaginable, the film isn't remotely sexy. It has that oddly British ability to be rampant and overwhelmingly timid at the same time--every bed scene is played as slapstick, usually of the gross-out variety. It couldn't be any more joyless really. The cast don't seem to understand that the film is a stinker, so they play their moronic characters fairly straight, almost pausing for the laughter as if it's a sketch show. But it's just an inept, mean-spirited movie (it's cruel to men and women in equal measure). And when it finally ends, after the longest 83 minutes of your life, you'll feel like you need a bath.
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![]() ![]() ![]() Andy Jamieson, Milton Keynes: Paul Genders, Macclesfield: bob, wiltshire:
Daddy-O, Portugal: | |||
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