Love, Honour and Obey
OPENS APRIL 7, cert. 18
All the usual suspects in a wheeze of London gangsters caught up in a crime war, sexual dysfunction and karaoke
What were they thinking? The same pals who inflicted Final Cut on us have tossed off the piss-poor second of a threatened three films in which the actors play characters with their own names and improvise smart-alec in-jokes and banalities within a structure [Dominic] Anciano and [Ray] Burdis and BBC films erroneously imagine approximates a film.

Jonny begs his glamorous boyhood mate Jude to get him into the toughest crime firm in North London, run by Jude's uncle Ray, a hard man devoted to family, his soap star fiancée Sadie, and karaoke nights. Opening on Ray and Sadie's wedding bash with everyone at the microphone cruelly raises hopes that this might be fun. They are rapidly crushed when we get into flashbacks - set up by monologues to camera from Jonny in clown make-up - and meet the gang's knuckleheads (Anciano and Burdis), who are engrossed by a running preoccupation with Burdis' impotence problem.

When the lads aren't singing, fighting or roguring birds (Kathy Burke, Denise Van Outen), they are conned by out-of-control Jonny into an escalating turf war with the Sarf London lot (Sean Pertwee, Rhys Ifans). The comedic high point is a heist in which the gangs, disguised as Arabs, share a packet of Viagra and terrorise the victim with their hard-ons, which indicates the level of wit and charm.

What's more unforgivable than the raggedness and puerility is the pervasive smugness. They all surely had a lovely time pratting around, but you can see better shoot 'em ups staged in a school playground than the inept climactic set piece here, while the violent torture scenes are just nasty. Sorry, fellas. Get a grip, and a script.
(awarded 1 star)
ANGIE ERRIGO

The Knowledge