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Botched

6/10

Stars: Stephen Dorff, Jaime Murray, Sean Pertwee, Bronagh Gallagher, Hugh O'Conor, Jamie Foreman, Geoff Bell

Director: Kit Ryan

A black comedy-horror with gore galore, this runs like a garish spoof from the 1960s (with added cursing), and there are certainly nods to the Vincent Price 'Poe' films and The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

Botching a diamond heist, after a dog runs in front of his getaway car, thief-for-hire Ritchie (Dorff) is given one last chance to make amends by his Russian boss (the ubiquitous Pertwee). He has to go to Russia and steal a sacred cross that once belonged to Ivan the Terrible.

Things soon go awry when one of his Russian accomplices (Foreman) shoots a witness during the robbery, then their getaway lift stalls and they - with several others - find themselves on a deserted floor at the mercy of a serial killer armed with a nasty array of sharp objects.

'We're going to be hunted down like animals and killed one by one,' gasps the bespectacled Dmitri. And of course he's right. That's what happens in films like this. This one, though, is quite funny in parts, especially after security guard Bell realises what's going on. 'You stole a sacred relic from the insane relatives of Ivan the Terrible,' he groans, just before one of them (Gallagher, enjoying herself) chops off his left hand.

Dorff keeps a straight face throughout, the main girl (tallish Jaime Murray from TV's Hustle) is a good foil and such hard men of the British cinema as Foreman and Bell assume reasonable Russian accents in the cause.

David Quinlan

UK/Ireland/France/Russia/Germany 2006. UK Distributor: Optimum. Colour by Kodak.
91 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 3, Drugs 0, Swearing 2.

Review date: 12 Apr 2008