Dirty Weekend starts starts in London as Bella (Lia Williams) discovers that her boyfriend is cheating on her, Bella decides to move down to Brighton by the seaside to be near her best friend Marion (Miriam Kelly). Bella rents a flat & gets a job as a secretary but becomes terrified of the man (Rufus Sewell) watching her from across the road, he calls her & threatens her while describing his sexual fantasies. The police are unable & unwilling to help & after an encounter with an Iranian therapist Bella decides to take matters into her own hands. Bella breaks into the man's flat & brutally murders him with a hammer, however Bella liked the feeling & carries on killing any man that she sense are a threat or try to take advantage of her...
This English production was co-written, co-produced & directed by Michael Winner who made the classic vigilante film Death Wish (1974) with Charles Bronson a couple of decades earlier, Dirty Weekend is basically Death Wish but with a 90's feminist twist where it's a woman dishing out the revenge in a world (well, Brighton) full of sleazy scumbag men. Adapted from the novel by Helen Zahavi the central character Bella was apparently a prostitute in the novel but changed to a mild mannered career women for the film, Zahavi must have been dumped by a man or ripped-off or something since every single male character in Dirty Weekend is a sleaze bag, a liar, a cheater, a sexual rapist, an abuser, a mutilating killer or just an immoral chauvinist out for what they can get. I can't say Dirty Weekend is a brilliant film or a deep film or a meaningful film or even a convincing film but it is an entertaining one. Some of the sharp dialogue drifts between being quite menacing & unintentionally hilarious, Rufus Sewell's dirty phone caller gets some great lines while he masturbates off screen which are pure low budget porn gold. Bella doesn't kick in to full vigilante mode until about the forty fifth minute but from that moments she meets all sorts of undesirable character's including a fat professor, a slimy dentist, a serial killer & a gang of thugs who hate people from Liverpool. The reasons & motivations given for Bella snapping are rather simplistic & not that deep but the feeling that she has come to the end of the line with no prospect of police help is quite well made, the suggestion that to become a vigilante is the only option left open to Bella is quiet effectively put across. Running at just under 100 minutes long Dirty Weekend moves along at a nice pace, while not particularly exciting or captivating there are enough bizarre & quirky moments to keep one entertained from Bella's rambling self justifying narration to her sexy outfits to act as bait to lure the scum of Brighton towards her to some of the seduction techniques used by both Bella the hunter & her prey. By the way, it's not as easy as Dirty Weekened makes out to buy a gun here in the UK. The open ended climax left things open for a sequel which I doubt we will ever see, having said that Bella took little precaution while murdering her way across Brighton & should have been caught by the police.
Dirty Weekend caused a lot of controversy when it was originally released, the British media went to town on this & generally bashed it & called it pornographic. Actress Lia Williams never undresses & apart from a couple of obviously simulated sex acts one would struggle to call it pornographic, Dirty Weekend was obviously described as such by people who had never seen it. Originally released theatrically uncut here in the UK the following video release was cut but about a minute & twenty seconds, only four scenes were shortened & none completely cut whatever some may say. I just saw the full uncut version (the complete hammer murder, the complete plastic bag death & forced fellatio in a car) & none of the extra footage is that noticeable. The hammer murder is as gory as it gets, Bella stabs a man to death but otherwise there's not that much violence to be seen. I guess it was the mixing of sexual & violent themes often within the same scenes that caused the problems although I am convinced it would be passed uncut if submitted to the BBFC today. While the classic vigilante flick Death Wish was set in New York, a dark place full of corruption & crime Dirty Weekend is takes place in the quaint seaside town of Brighton! Hardly renowned as a hotbed of crime & filth.
Filmed on location in Brighton this probably had a quite a low budget but there's a pretty good cast here including Rufus Sewell, David McCallum, Sean Pertwee, Christopher Ryan & Ian Richardson. Lia Williams sounds like she is dubbed a lot of the time but puts in a good performance.
Dirty Weekend is a Death Wish rip-off with a feminist role reversal twist, while a strangely enjoyably perverse revenge thriller that has no subtlety at all maybe it's not a film for everyone. I liked it in a bizarre honest sort of way.
This English production was co-written, co-produced & directed by Michael Winner who made the classic vigilante film Death Wish (1974) with Charles Bronson a couple of decades earlier, Dirty Weekend is basically Death Wish but with a 90's feminist twist where it's a woman dishing out the revenge in a world (well, Brighton) full of sleazy scumbag men. Adapted from the novel by Helen Zahavi the central character Bella was apparently a prostitute in the novel but changed to a mild mannered career women for the film, Zahavi must have been dumped by a man or ripped-off or something since every single male character in Dirty Weekend is a sleaze bag, a liar, a cheater, a sexual rapist, an abuser, a mutilating killer or just an immoral chauvinist out for what they can get. I can't say Dirty Weekend is a brilliant film or a deep film or a meaningful film or even a convincing film but it is an entertaining one. Some of the sharp dialogue drifts between being quite menacing & unintentionally hilarious, Rufus Sewell's dirty phone caller gets some great lines while he masturbates off screen which are pure low budget porn gold. Bella doesn't kick in to full vigilante mode until about the forty fifth minute but from that moments she meets all sorts of undesirable character's including a fat professor, a slimy dentist, a serial killer & a gang of thugs who hate people from Liverpool. The reasons & motivations given for Bella snapping are rather simplistic & not that deep but the feeling that she has come to the end of the line with no prospect of police help is quite well made, the suggestion that to become a vigilante is the only option left open to Bella is quiet effectively put across. Running at just under 100 minutes long Dirty Weekend moves along at a nice pace, while not particularly exciting or captivating there are enough bizarre & quirky moments to keep one entertained from Bella's rambling self justifying narration to her sexy outfits to act as bait to lure the scum of Brighton towards her to some of the seduction techniques used by both Bella the hunter & her prey. By the way, it's not as easy as Dirty Weekened makes out to buy a gun here in the UK. The open ended climax left things open for a sequel which I doubt we will ever see, having said that Bella took little precaution while murdering her way across Brighton & should have been caught by the police.
Dirty Weekend caused a lot of controversy when it was originally released, the British media went to town on this & generally bashed it & called it pornographic. Actress Lia Williams never undresses & apart from a couple of obviously simulated sex acts one would struggle to call it pornographic, Dirty Weekend was obviously described as such by people who had never seen it. Originally released theatrically uncut here in the UK the following video release was cut but about a minute & twenty seconds, only four scenes were shortened & none completely cut whatever some may say. I just saw the full uncut version (the complete hammer murder, the complete plastic bag death & forced fellatio in a car) & none of the extra footage is that noticeable. The hammer murder is as gory as it gets, Bella stabs a man to death but otherwise there's not that much violence to be seen. I guess it was the mixing of sexual & violent themes often within the same scenes that caused the problems although I am convinced it would be passed uncut if submitted to the BBFC today. While the classic vigilante flick Death Wish was set in New York, a dark place full of corruption & crime Dirty Weekend is takes place in the quaint seaside town of Brighton! Hardly renowned as a hotbed of crime & filth.
Filmed on location in Brighton this probably had a quite a low budget but there's a pretty good cast here including Rufus Sewell, David McCallum, Sean Pertwee, Christopher Ryan & Ian Richardson. Lia Williams sounds like she is dubbed a lot of the time but puts in a good performance.
Dirty Weekend is a Death Wish rip-off with a feminist role reversal twist, while a strangely enjoyably perverse revenge thriller that has no subtlety at all maybe it's not a film for everyone. I liked it in a bizarre honest sort of way.