Cashback

Stars: Sean Biggerstaff, Emilia Fox, Shaun Evans, Michelle Ryan, Michael Dixon, Stuart Goodwin

Director: Sean Ellis

Is this a soft-porn sex film? A romantic comedy? Or a quirky combination of the two? Director Ellis caters for the voyeurs by ensuring that all his naked girls have big, shiny breasts. For the romance, he wisely chose Emilia Fox, a wasted talent who should have become a major star of the British cinema but now probably never will. At least she probably enjoyed the spot of pole dancing that gets her away from her usual delicate image.

Leading character in this much-delayed movie is Ben (Sean Biggerstaff - good name for a sex romp), a perennial art student on the rebound from long-term partner Suzy (Ryan, the erstwhile Zoe Slater from EastEnders). Unable to sleep after the break-up, Ben decides to spend the night hours working at the check-out in Sainsbury's at London's Whitechapel.

Here, he discovers the ability to freeze time and, naturally, take the clothes off pretty shoppers (none of whom seem to wear bras) whom he then draws.

Caricatures of the martinet manager (Goodwin) and Ben's crass co-workers are amusingly drawn, but the flimsy fable is stretched way past breaking point, and will have you looking at your watches as often as the graveyard workers it depicts. Thank goodness for Fox who, retaining her cool and charm throughout in a role you wouldn't expect to suit her, almost saves it.

David Quinlan

UK 2005. UK Distributor: The Works. Colour by deluxe.
103 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

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

Review date: 02 May 2008