1 out of 10
 

"Focus!" someone shouted out from the audience as the Press preview was hit by yet another technical hitch. Ironically, the comment could just as easily be applied to this atrociously directed film with a plot so loose it rattled. Is this a thriller? A love story? A comedy? Nope, this 1920's dog's dinner fails on all counts.

The Studio is clearly trying to create a "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid" of the 1990's. By always speaking in an unintelligible, Southern-accented mumbo-jumbo gibberish slang, the actors hope to portray the bank-robbing brothers as really human, folksy people, but it fails hideously, principally because they weren't. The publicity suggests that they were moral people, because they never killed anyone. True, but only because these trigger-happy gangsters were a lousy shot. And the film tries to show them to be loveable Jack-the-Lads, who get the better of the system, yet the only reason why they avoid a long prison sentence is by conspiring to send one of their associates of dubious guilt to jail for the rest of his natural life. Despite being overly long (by about 100%), the film fails to endear even one character to the audience, and without caring about them; one ends up not caring about what little plot there is.

At least with endless technical breakdowns, our audience had an opportunity to leave, which droves did each time the film snapped. (Indeed, the Cinema had to offer free vouchers at the end just to keep the few left there were of us). Regrettably, you are unlikely to have the same chance.