Triggermen

A comedy-thriller short on laughs and thrills, Triggermen is a rather misjudged film that feels like it might have been a whole lot better in different hands. The story begins as English con man Pete (Morrissey) - barely surviving with his partner-in-crime Andy (Dunbar) - decides to swipe a briefcase full of cash from a hotel lobby.

He soon realises it was a pay-off for an assassination attempt on ageing crime boss Ben Cutler (Postlethwaite). But rather than flee with the cash, Andy convinces the reluctant Pete - desperate to get home to see his pregnant wife Penny (Plummer) - to stay in the hotel room rented for the assassins and live the high life for a while. Soon enough, the real killers - Tommy (Rapaport) and Terry (Wahlberg) - turn up, wondering why they have missed their instructions. And things really begin to get complicated when hitman Terry, by chance, falls for Emma (Forlani), daughter to Cutler.

While Morrissey is, as ever, a likeable screen presence, his performance cant help but remind you of his character from 'Men Behaving Badly'. As Andy, Morrissey doesnt do enough to move away from his TV lad persona, giving the impression that he is not really stretching himself. Although the support cast - from Postlethwaite to Forlani, Rapaport and Wahlberg - are all reasonably interesting choices, the main problem is the farcical nature of the script and its lightweight direction. Scoring the film with an entirely inappropriate soundtrack, Bradshaw also repeatedly shoots sequences in slow motion or high-speed as a means of lending the film some style. All it does is make it look ridiculous and cheap, like a poor mans Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels (a film, along with Pulp Fiction, that the production notes would have us liken Triggermen to).