Normandy
is known for its oysters, so it ought to be a fine place for a lovers’ getaway.
Unfortunately, a British history teacher and his pupil are hoping for very
different things from their secret assignation. However, their plans will be
interrupted by someone else’s caper gone wrong in Christopher Granier-Deferre’s
Dirty Weekend (trailer here), which launches
on VOD today.
Thirty-four
year-old Mike Mallory has crossed over to France before his seventeen year-old
student Trish Stallworth, who is rather perturbed by the inconvenient change of
plans. Mallory is acting a bit odd, but at least he will have time to pick up a
few items, like a shovel. It seems Mallory probably will not be leaving his
wife after all, but the oblivious Stallworth gets a last minute reprieve when
they discover an apparently deceased armed robber and his satchel full of Louis
d’Or coins in their rental cottage.
Of
course, the young roguish Vincent was only wounded and extremely sleepy, but he
came to in time to see what Mallory had in mind for Stallworth. As she and Mallory
try to figure out what to do with their interloper, two corrupt cops wait to
finish off the survivors.
Previously
known as Le Weekend, Dirty’s new title should avoid confusion
with Roger Michell’s Le Week-End,
which does not have a body count of its own, but would probably be even less
fun to live through. Sure, everyone should know better several times over, but
it is good fun to watch them manipulate and betray each other.
Granier-Deferre
maintains a breezy comic vibe (albeit of a decidedly dark variety) that allows
viewers to enjoy the skulduggery without any anxiety, because it is impossible
to form any sort of emotional attachments to any of the characters (although
there is something to be said for the manic naiveté Kirsty Oswald brings to
bear as Stallworth). While the lack of a genuine rooting interest can be a perilous
strategy, Granier-Deferre and screenwriter Geoffrey Gunn pull it off with some
clever one-darned-thing-after-another plotting.
