tomreidsemail I just love that this movie uses the real names of the actors, Jude, Ray, Johnny etc, so it's very cool. The main source of the humour comes from the the two bodyguards, one old and one young - mainly around the young guy trying sort out the old guys love life with his wife Kathy Burke. She then gets subjected to some of these suggestions which makes for great comedy.The violence stems from rival gangs and the characters in Ray's gang who are quite uncompromising. Ray asks one of them, who is in hospital, how he's doing - he says I've been stabbed by my own mate for a joke, burnt and force feed dog food - how do you think I feel?This is a movie to see and stack on the DVD shelf ahead of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels for a repeat viewing.

bowmanblue I first watched 'Love, Honour and Obey' back when it was released in 2000. Seeing as I've always been reasonably into British gangster films, in short, I thought it was pretty cool. However, I never had it on DVD and have only just got round to re-watching it a good fifteen years later. Despite my good memories of the film, I begrudgingly have to admit that it hasn't aged all that well.Perhaps I was so into Guy Ritchie's style of cockney gangster flick of the late nineties/early 2000s that I somehow lumped this into the same nostalgically-good category. I don't want to be too harsh on it, because there are definitely some good points and I didn't totally hate it – it just let me down on a repeat viewing. We meet Johnny Lee Miller's character who is pretty much a London nobody and dreams of working his way into 'the mob' who it just so happens that his childhood friend, Jude Law, is already related to.The overall impression I got after the credits rolled was that it felt more like a 'made-for-TV' movie. And, upon looking into it, I did find that it was originally shown on the BBC before its release on DVD (or VHS in those days!). It's rare that I notice the 'direction' of a film so much. Normally, a film is cut together so smoothly that you can follow the story at all times. However, here scenes just sort of end as if the film cut out mid-dialogue. It really is a bit jarring after a while. Plus there are some scenes that don't really go anywhere and feel a little out of place in the scheme of things. And, while we're on the topic of odd scenes, this film does struggle to know what it wants to be. At first glance it's a gangster film, but it's never really dark and gritty enough to be that nasty. It throws weird comedic scenes and plot-lines in there which wouldn't be out of place in an American Pie film. However, again, it's not funny enough to be a comedy and, like the editing, it bounces all over the place.But, like I say, even now I didn't feel I totally wasted my time watching it. For a start it contains a stellar cast, headed by Ray Winstone, Johnny Lee Miller and Jude Law (the less said about Sadie Frost's performance the better). However, the stand-out performance comes from a truly menacing Rhys Ifans for his rival villain. For some reason they're all called by their actors' first names – weird, but interesting. Then you have the karaoke scenes which really are quite fun (not to mention catchy!).There was still just about enough nostalgia here to entertain me and, if you're a major fan of any of the leads, you'll probably find enjoyment during its hour and a half run-time. However, I can't see it being regarded as much of a classic in the long run. It was kind of trying to ride the coattails of Lock, Stock and hope no one really noticed. I did at the time, but it doesn't now.

altereggonyc Painfully obvious that this was an "improv" effort. Event the most incompetently written script wouldn't have been this bad. Many fine actors were completely wasted. They repeat the same words over and over again. They were probably told the point a scene was supposed to make but just couldn't come up with the lines needed to make it seem natural. The cuts are awkward, almost as though this was supposed to be a series of vignettes. Was this because the improv scenes ended so badly they just had to be spliced together? There is a wisp of a plot, but the characters make very little sense, the sex jokes are astonishingly childish, and the humor is cruel, violent, amoral and not even a little bit witty. Nothing in the movie seems plausible, authentic or original -- it's a derivative collection of clichés. In terms of intelligence and humanity, any Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie movie is David Lean's "Gandhi" compared to this appalling collection of scenes. Calling it a "movie" is generous.

Neil Welch This curious film is, to me, flawed in one fatal respect.A largely extemporised crime comedy/drama featuring some heavy-hitting UK talent, it is pretty funny most of the way through. I enjoyed, and was entertained by, about 90% of the movie. Everything, in fact, up to the very end.And then there are several violent killings.Now, I don't have a problem with violence, and I don't have a problem with mixing violence with comedy. But when you combine the two, it's a really good idea if there is a point to it - Little Big Man, for instance, where the savagery of genocide is given heightened contrast by the overall daftness of the rest of Jack Crabbe's life.No such consideration applies here, and the violence is instead completely out of place. The Coens made a similar mistake with Burn After Reading.