Back in Business (2007)

Director:

Chris Munro

Writers:

Neil Gardiner (idea)
Chris Munro (writer)

Release Date:

9 February 2007 (UK)

Genre:

Adventure | Comedy | Family

Tagline:

Saving The Day The British Way

Plot:

With a bit of luck and some of the worlds most sophisticated space technology, this unlikely crew will pull the wool over the eyes of the world and rocket themselves into the history books!

Plot Keywords:

Comedy Team | Cool Cat | Secret Agent | Space | Technology

Cast

Martin Kemp	...	Will Spencer
Chris Barrie	...	Tom Marks
Dennis Waterman	...	Jarvis
Brian Blessed	...	Trevor Pilkington
Stefan Booth	...	Travis Marks
Joanna Taylor	...	Fiona
Togo Igawa	...	Spokesman
Stephen Greif	...	Leonidov
Frank Thornton	...	Gardener
Alison King	...	Covington
Rocky Taylor	...	Boris
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Samantha Bennett	...	Petruska
Caroline Bernstein	...	Margaret Thatcher
Kim Coppens	...	Hotel Receptionist
Ryan Kelly	...	Cute Guy Sushi Restaurant
Laurence Possa	...	Yevgeny
Tod	...	Todger the Dog

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Dunsfold Park, Dunsfold, Surrey, England, UK

Company:

21st Century Productions UK

Trivia:

The name of the space buggy is Astronautical Roving Space Explorer.

If films carry on like this, very soon the British Film Industry will be Out of Business!!!

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Britain has just invented a space exploration buggy named 'Explorer' that rivals anything the world's two space super-powers, America and Russia, have created. Spruce conman Will Spencer (Martin Kemp) plots to steal it, along with his old friend Tom (Chris Barrie), his computer whizz son Travis (Stefan Booth) and Will's niece Fiona (Joanna Taylor.) But Will's old adversary and now man-servant, Det Jarvis (Dennis Waterman) is determined to use the scam to bring him down and get back in the police force...or will he end up wanting in on the scam himself?

The first I saw of this movie was a poster of it in a magazine that boasted it was 'one of the few films in recent years to achieve an 100% British grade' and that we should 'do our part to keep the British film industry thriving' and see it, even though I can't name a single cinema it was released in. In other words, the BFI is in such a bad state it's now trying to make us feel we have a duty to go out and see whatever rubbish it's responsible for! In these post Sex Lives of the Potato Men days though, I suppose that's something you could believe...

The film was entirely British made, then, and I guess it shows all the way. Indeed, the film does look very cheap and the low budget is clear for all to see. And then there's the cast. Martin Kemp with a Cambridge accent?!? I struggled to keep a straight face through-out. I don't know if that's how Chris Barrie talks in real life, but I found it very annoying anyway. Then there's some ex-Hollyoaks actor who looks like he's wondered right out of panto which only adds to the cheapness of it all and as for Joanna Taylor, one of the things I learned from the film Shoot 'Em Up is if an actress isn't giving a particularly great performance it always helps if she has a nice pair of breasts to stare at instead of her face and, well, that works here. And finally, Dennis Waterman ('I could be so good for...a disgruntled ex police-man!!!') Apparently he gets annoyed at them taking the p!ss out of his voice in Little Britain but it sounds very weird here, like he's put a funny twang on it that makes it sound rather peculiar and unsettling indeed.

A cheap and unfunny experience all round, then, that does no favours for the BFI and certainly none for us. *