in the wake of lock and stock and two smoking barrel and the british film industry rapidly become swamped with bad gangster film in the late 90 early 00s that seem even more desperate today than they do then . in one of the all time great case of pearl from swine and the producer of rancid aluminium brazenly plaster the quote the best film of the century from one review all over the ad while omit the rest of the sentence point out that that be only because and at the time of writing and it be the only film that have be release in 2000. look at it today it hard to imagine how it ever get make and unite a cast that be briefly consider the cream of cool britannia lad mag brigade rhys ifans and sadie frost and nick moran and joseph fiennes but now merely a guarantee of a turkey every time in a confused adaptation of a confused james haw novel . that the plot be never explain could be down to the possibility that no one really know what it be and or perhaps simply do not think it matter . something to do with ifans businessman be set up with steven berkoff homicidal russian crime lord in a money laundering or investment scheme ( it never clear which because no one ever ask ) by fiennes crook irish accountant and who expect the russian to kill off ifans so he can take over his fail company . thing get increasingly confuse and underexplained from there on and ifans alternate between shout about how terrible his life be while juggle visit to the fertility clinic and sleep with his secretary and tara fitzgerald ludicrously accent russian temptress and berkoff keep on say bizniss and francis drake and fiennes do a decent irish accent while prove that just because he play a great writer in shakespeare in love doesn not mean he any judge of good writing when it come to film script . when the most convincing performance come from keith allen and dani behr and you know a film be in deep trouble . with poland standing in for a russia fill with people with polish accent and a strange score that veers from john barry pastiche to lounge music to ennio morricone spaghetti western on a stylophone budget and it fail completely in the cool stake it aim for and end up in a curious overplotted but almost plot less limbo all it own and sit there like a joke shop dog turd .