Guest House Paradiso (1999)

AKA We All Know That It's Really Bottom: The Movie.

Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson star as Richard and Eddie, a couple of absolutely deranged individuals who are somehow running what is clearly the worst hotel in the UK. Richard is rude to many of the guests, although always has time for the long-term resident Mrs. Foxfur (Fenella Fielding), but he also just wants plenty of spare time to perv on any females that he hopes to see naked. His heart soars when the hotel is visited by Gina Carbonara (Hélène Mahieu), a gorgeous woman who is wanting to stay hidden away from her callous and abusive husband (Gino Bolognese, played by Vincent Cassel).

I was really disappointed when I first watched Guest House Paradiso. I somehow thought that Edmondson and Mayall would find a way to translate their characters into something that would retain the essence of their comedy while also expanding the size of their onscreen world. Although there are some exterior shots here, Guest House Paradiso largely takes place in the titular hotel. There's a bigger supporting cast, and some impressive practical effects, but the film-makers are more interested in just spending some more time putting our leads through the wringer than in seizing the opportunity to be a bit more cinematic in between people being on the receiving end of some major testicle trauma.

Perhaps that was always to be expected. Edmondson stepped into the director's chair, working from a screenplay co-written by the two leads, and it's understandable that they would want to keep things quite simple and within their comfort zone, especially as this was all being done after the quad bike accident that very nearly killed Mayall, leading to him being hospitalised for quite some time.

Anyway, revisiting the film all these years later, after buying a new physical media release of it, ended up being a very good idea. I still have problems with the film, it's not exactly a misunderstood classic, but it's actually a lot better than I remembered. That's partly to do with a cast full of now-familiar faces who were relative unknowns to me back in the late 1990s, it's partly to do with not having anything around nowadays that has that particular brand of Mayall-Edmondson comedic violence, and it's partly to do with me now appreciating a few more of the gags. And the set-piece that has Mayall running around the hotel in a red and spiky rubber set of underwear is impossible to watch without at least chuckling every time the situation gets worse for him.

While both Mayall and Edmondson can play these characters in their sleep, their commitment to the lunacy is always admirable. I don't know how anyone can keep a straight face while acting opposite them, but both Mahieu and Cassel manage, and both gain brownie points for wholly getting into the spirit of the thing. Cassel is particularly enjoyable as he commits to playing someone so repugnant and awful that both Rich and Eddie seem like a better companion. Which is really saying something. Fielding is delightful, and it's fun to see Bill Nighy, Kate Ashfield, and Simon Pegg cast together in a pre-Shaun feature (although they don't all share the screen at any one time). Lisa Palfrey also suffers some indignities for the sake of the comedy, and Steven O'Donnell is a very weary, angry, and drunken chef.

There's still something that holds this back though, something that stops it from being on a par with the TV show it stems from. I couldn't put my finger on it years ago, but now I know what the problem is. It's all too well-realised. The dirt, the body fluids, the stains . . . they're never as funny when you can almost smell them through the screen. It's a similar problem with the violence. Watching Mayall and Edmondson pretend to hurt one another is all well and good, and still works here, but there are some practical gags (one relating to eye damage and one that puts a fishing hook through the nipple of a sleeping victim) that lose some of the humour because of the painful detail shown. And don't get me started on the excessive amount of vomit filling up the screen during the third act.

You might never want to check in to the Guest House Paradiso, but you should definitely check it out.* It's gross, funny, and gross. But also funny. But very gross.

*IF you're a fan of Mayall and Edmondson.

7/10

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Eastern Promises (2007)

David Cronenberg followed up the magnificent A History Of Violence by reteaming with leading man Viggo Mortensen and creating something that works as both a companion piece and also a flipside to their preceding movie. A here and now of violence, if you will.

Events are set in motion by a young girl who gives birth to a child, but dies in the process. Naomi Watts plays a nurse named Anna, present at the birth and worried about the future of the newborn child. She takes a diary that belonged to the deceased girl, finds out that it's in Russian and sets out to get it translated, in an effort to find a family for the baby. Unfortunately, in her attempt to do a good deed she finds herself mixing with some bad people. Bad Russian gangster types. The big boss is Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), messy situations are created by his son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), and everything gets cleaned up by Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), who constantly refers to him as just a driver. As Anna gets more involved with these people she puts herself, and others, in a very dangerous situation.

Unhurried, unfussy and completely unglamorous, Eastern Promises is a typically cool look at some unpleasantness by Cronenberg, working from a fantastic script by Steven Knight. Set in London, he matches his usual style with the great cinematography by Peter Suschitzky with outstanding results. London isn't the collection of buildings scattered around Big Ben and Notting Hill that it so often is in other movies. It's simply a big city, a place full of areas and buildings that you could pass by every day without a suspicion of what has gone on there.

But it's the acting that really lifts this up to a fantastic viewing experience. Naomi Watts is very good in her role, believably strong in her eagerness to do the right thing while also visibly unnerved. Armin Mueller-Stahl is great as the typical, cold gangster boss and Vincent Cassel is always entertaining as Kirill, the son who can never seem to do any right for doing wrong. The film belongs to Viggo Mortensen, however, and his performance is almost perfect. Okay, there may be problems with the accent to those who have a better ear than I do, but it's not too bad. Not too bad at all. His dialogue is also backed up by a physical performance arguably better than the one he delivered in A History Of Violence. Able support also comes from Sinead Cusack, Jerzy Skolimowski and even Tamer Hassan, in a small role that still allows him to feature in the most memorable sequence in the entire film.

Although the movie has quite a few moments of violence in it, none of them are flippant, "easy" movie deaths. This is a film about every bloodletting sending a message, about every body telling a story (be it through tattoos or fatal wounds) and about how much some people will risk in order to make a difference for the better. It's all that, PLUS it's a fantastic gangster movie AND it has one of the best and boldest fight scenes set in a bathhouse since . . . . . . . . . . . well, since ever.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eastern-Promises-Blu-ray/dp/B0010VXMQW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1370799643&sr=8-2&keywords=eastern+promises