IMDb user comments for
Back in Business (2007)

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6 comments in total

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8 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
It Should be Out of Business, 25 March 2007

Author: delhart2001 from Spain

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This is English film making at its worst, i really do not know how or why it got funded in the fist place, it has some good actors, Dennis Waterman, Brian Blessed and Martin Kemp, and putting aside his days as bass player with Spandau Ballet, a very good actor, so again, why would they take on this project, money, fame, favor, suicide. To cut to the chase, we have a pair of con men, one of which is a lord of the realm (nothing new there then)and his old school mate, together they are know as, wait for it, Marks & Spencer, paaleese, must have had an epiphany to think of that, and it gets worse, after conning three country's into buying Londons Tower Bridge, the two are back together to steal and sell a space buggy type vehicle, that was invented by the BSA, (British Space Agency) to either the Russians or the Chinese, what a plot, to be honest i never knew we had a space agency, the UK was not one of the first to put anyone on the moon as far as i remember, back to the plot. The thing is there is no space buggy type vehicle, because the BSA ran out of money before it was completed, so what do Marks & Spencer do, they build one from one of those little trucks gardeners use, with some tin foil, wheels from a mini tractor, bits from here and there and lo and behold we have a blue print built, state of the art space buggy vehicle. Needless to say the Russians, the Chinese are in the frame to buy this item for millions, and to be honest who cares, so i am as fed up with writing this review as watching the thing, but i wanted to let you know before you spend your hard earned money, miss this like the plague, in fact the plague may be a better alternative. be safe

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
If films carry on like this, very soon the British Film Industry will be Out of Business!!!, 19 January 2008

Author: davideo-2 from Birmingham,England

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. *

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
cut the chicken into quarters......, 13 June 2007

Author: coreyno1 from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The space race has been dominated for decades by two rival superpowers, but just when they thought they were alone, a new force has arrived. Britain has developed an amazing space exploration buggy that might solve the planets energy problems.

But will Britain's greatest achievement become one conman's finest hour? Will Spencer and his right hand man/master of disguise will re-unite alongside Will's niece Fiona head of marketing at the British Space Centre, and Travis, Tom's accident-prone son, in a series of comical misadventures spanning across the United Kingdom and beyond!

our unlikely heroes will create a plan the likes of which the world has never before seen, to steal what every government wants. And the only person that stands in their way is Scotland Yard's worst detective.

Together they will use the UK's highly developed space technology to outsmart the world's most powerful ambassadors, and ultimately help put the 'Great' back into Great Britain......

twenty years ago, this would have been casting heaven. Rimmer from Red Dwarf, Waterman from Minder and the good looking on from Spandau Ballet all starring in a good old English romp about space. what memorable British comedies spring to mind from the eighties? clockwise? the boys in blue? wilt? the only comedy/drama that is remembered really from the eighties is Buster, and that was hardly laugh out loud.

spring forward twenty years and with the advent of such comedy as spaced, Shaun of the Dead, hot fuzz and the office, this feels somewhat redundant. it features a lot of has beens (sorry) and they are all overacting their socks off. the only actor to come out of it with any credibility is Kemp, who like every other role he plays, acts like Reggie Kray (but more posher).

but to be fair, one of the only reasons i wanted to see this movie, is because some of it was filmed in my home town of Leicester (it wasn't even released theatrically here!!), and nothing more. it's not very funny, despite the sound concept and Waterman and Barrie look plain embarrassed.

if you like decent British comedy like the above mentioned, steer clear. if you laugh out loud at my family, or enjoyed 'sex lives of the potato men', then enjoy.

there is one funny reference though to the Sweeny, that made me grin though..

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9 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Good, 5 March 2007

Author: Tony Camel from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Gone are the days when every new ITV drama came equipped with the words 'starring Martin Kemp', so the title of this new film applies as much to him as it does the pair of conmen reunited for the greatest job of their lives. Kemp is Will Spencer, working alongside his old partner, master of disguise Tom Marks (Red Dwarf's Chris Barrie) and his spectacularly incompetent son, Travis (Stefan Booth). Their ace in the hole, however, is Will's niece Fiona (Joanna Taylor), who works at the British Space Centre, where they've just developed a space buggy that could help solve planet's energy and ecological problems. This group of misfits and insiders plan to put themselves at the centre of Britain's major scientific breakthrough. Only Dennis Waterman as Jarvis - the Inspector Clouseau of Scotland Yard - can stop them.

Back In Business is the kind of gentle family caper movie that used to be a staple of British cinema back in the days of the Boulting Brothers and Ealing Studios. Sadly, though, this has neither the wit nor insight into the social fabric of those golden movies. Instead we get an anodyne adventure that limps along with a bunch of performances that would be better suited to Sunday evening TV comedy dramas than the big screen. It may be a while before Martin Kemp can give up the sofa adverts...

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0 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Great Giggly nostalgic movie from a Stella cast, 1 March 2008

Author: Cool-World from Spain

To compare Back in Business with a modern day Film is like saying that a child's homemade go-cart and a Ferrari are comparable as they both have wheels and are capable of independent movement. Back In Business is not a conventional film, per se. It's a product of old cinema which was more about outrageous exhibition as about story telling - It's a Mad (5) World, What's New Pussycat, Barbarella. They're big, flabby, self-indulgent, glorious messes that stand as social commentary as much as cinema.

The in-jokes, the winking references, the cameos - all are used to great effect in Back In Business. Great music, great costumes, some good sets, wall of sound - all make Back In Business a little piece of 60s film-making for the modern day. Please don't watch it if you want to watch a competent and engaging movie - but do watch it if you want 90 mins of nostalgia and silliness and stupid enjoyment Then Enjoy This Film

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0 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
What do you get when you mix an Eastender, a Minder and Red Dwarfer...? A mindless red faced Eastender!, 25 January 2008

Author: steelhamster from United Kingdom

Difficult where to start with this pig of a movie.... although it hasn't beaten the title of worse British movie ever (which I still believe 'Sex Lives of the Potato Men' will hold forever) it has little to recommend it.

I caught it on a movie channel, and was interested only because Chris Barrie was in it. As a huge Red Dwarf fan, I look forward to see the actors in that appear in other things. He shone in the Tomb Raider movies as the groovy butler Hilary, so when I sat down to watch this film I expected great things.

I certainly set myself up for a big fall. It comes to something that the only funny bits are the end credit bloopers.

It just looked like cheap tat, and I thought the British Film industry had left this sort of weak stuff behind (see previous comment about the Potato Men) but this just lets old Blighty down.

If any non Brit comes across this in the bargain bin or on a cable channel, don't judge us too harshly, we didn't know.... we are innocent.

We need more Sexy Beasts and Lock Stocks and less of this insipid stuff.

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