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If there was ever a film with unfair criticism heaped upon it by those who had never seen it, it was this year’s British comedy Sex Lives of the Potato Men.
That’s not to say it’s the funniest film I’ve ever seen, but it’s definitely one worth a watch by those who are going to enjoy it, such as those who enjoy the quirky and edgy comedies found on BBC2, BBC3 and Channel 4 – and not those who enjoy My Family and/or read the Daily Mail cover-to-cover and agree with everything it says.
Birmingham potato delivery men Dave (Johnny Vegas) and Ferris (Mackenzie Crook) have got sex problems. Dave’s married but just isn’t getting enough and is being asked to move out of the marital home by his wife, while Ferris is getting too much, but just from all the wrong sections of his life including his mother-in-law, Joan (Kate Robbins) and the local chip shop slut (Helen Latham). The former case is more of a problem, even though he’s no longer with his wife, there are gross moments in store when he thinks he’s safe because Joan’s mother has come round (Evie Garratt, the old woman from Little Britain that Dave Walliams’ young-boy character had a disturbing fancy for).
So, Dave moves into his mate Tolly’s (Dominic Coleman) flat, which isn’t exactly a blessing. Tolly’s sex mad – and not getting any from anywhere either, he habitually wanks all day, and he’s addicted to sandwiches made out of fish-paste and strawberry jam, ever since his ex-wife allowed him to put it on her during oral sex. Is anyone’s life going well?
Not quite. Dave and Ferris’ boss, Jeremy (Mark Gatiss), has just announced his 12-month anniversary to his girlfriend Ruth (Lucy Davis), except they’re not going out any more. In fact, they barely went out. In fact, they did for a while, but she’s now seeing someone else and he’s just stalking and writing nasty letters to her for something to do.
As I inferred atop this review, it got a slating in some parts of the press, particularly the stupid and brain-dead Daily Mail – the paper who critcising the 2001 Brass Eye special because they said it was making fun out of paedophilia… when it wasn’t. It was satirising the media’s portrayal of said subject, and the fact the Daily Mail were criticising it for the wrong reasons meant the whole thing came full circle and bit them from behind – except they could neither see nor understand that.
So, what did they make of this movie? Their headline “Vile British Sex Filth Funded By National Lottery” said it all, exaggerating the amount that was put in, which in reality was only about half of the £1.7m total cost. It was also filmed in a very short space of time, many scenes shot in one take given the tightness of the filming schedule and the fact that the limited budget meant that they didn’t really have time to get things wrong.
It’s certainly not for the faint-hearted, and two of the early gags do not prepare you for some of what comes next, such as a gross-out moment of the older chip shop woman’s dandruff on her shoulder falling onto Dave’s chips like snow, or the light-hearted “I wish my wife was this dirty.”, scrawled in the muck on the back of their van. No, it’s more like extended takes on the ‘sandwich filling’ highlighted above – and some about a coma patient after her husband died in the same car accident, and Dave’s incredibly poor attempt to explain it to her son. Note that the woman in a coma, Helen (Jenny Jay) was the woman who some time ago in the ’80s comedy Bread actually seemed quite attractive in a buxom soft of way. Yet now, she’s just ballooned. Pass. Still, for Dave, any port in a storm…
Writer/director Andy Humphries even turned up on BBC2’s humourous business show Working Lunch, which surprised me at first until it was revealed that one of the main presenters had a guest-spot in the film. And while his name and the character, ‘Sex Party Host’, aren’t linked in anywhere but the actual credits, the man still gets a name-check early on as Dave embarks on his first-ever threesome, expecting it to be between single mother Poppy (Nicola Reynolds) and another woman. Things do NOT go to plan, though, and as the nervousness of a threesome with another man being present leads to a topic-changing discussion about how mobile phones and radios work when they come to turn them off…
- Dave: “I saw that Adrian Chiles in the pub and I asked him about it. He didn’t have a clue,
and he’s on the BBC! Lives near Redditch. Lovely house. He’s quite a nice bloke, actually. Told us that
he’s loaded, like. He said he doesn’t get out of bed for less than two grand.”
- Kevin: “He just stays in bed if no-one pays him?”
- Dave: “Yeah. Think so.”
- Kevin: “His pyjamas must stink.”
- Dave: “Actually, there was a funny smell in that pub.”
Other points of note about the movie: There’s a reference to Lucy Davis’ real-life father, the funny-in-the-’80s-but-never-since Jasper Carrot, when Ferris shows off his latest purchase, a ‘funky moped’, plus some good music in the form of The Buzzcocks‘ Orgasm Addict, The Coral‘s Dreaming Of You and a number of old Dexy’s Midnight Runners songs.
However, it’s one in particular which is used in a karaoke scene and over the end credits – in full – Come On Eileen, which put to bed the ghosts of the June 2004 bastardisation that was a football reworking about “In-ger-lund” by a band calling themselves 4-4-2 and the Talksport Crew, the latter being the presenters from a London-based radio station that used to have integrity before it sacked its tour-de-force, Tommy Boyd, for absolutely no reason other than the fact they couldn’t get a cut of the then-WWF UK gigs he was setting up, and not because of the Queen Mother-unfriendly remark that was allowed to go to air. Mike Parry – hang your head in shame.
And the same sentiment goes to the idiots who took the original Dexy’s lyrics and fucked them up good and proper for the Euro 2004 single, and also to those complete arseholes who think sticking an England flag or two on their cars is the definition of patriotism. It’s not. It’s sheep-following-sheep at best, and should see them all pictured forever on Chavscum.co.uk
There’s no problems, nor surprises, about the picture and sound. The film is presented in the original cinema ratio of 1.85:1 and is anamorphic, looking a bit dismal at times but that’s only because it’s reflecting the Brum backdrop, which clearly isn’t anything more to shout about than Manchester’s. Sonically, the audio is in Dolby Surround-only, which doesn’t get much chance to shine, nor show up any problems, as a comedy flick, so that’s that.
The original disc I reviewed was the rental DVD. Having had a quick look at the retail version, although I got the impression from the BBFC website that there was around 40 minutes of extras rated, here there’s actually very little. There’s a 7-minute Featurette mixing in brief cast and crew interviews, and a 2½-minute Trailer which is very well put together and contains the ‘warning’…
No actual potatoes were harmed in the making of this movie.”
These scant extras don’t make it a particular must-buy though. You’ll know from the above review whether this is your type of film. If it is, rent it and you’ll enjoy it, and if it isn’t, then stick with that tawdry brand of newspaper.
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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
7 8 6 1 |
| OVERALL | 7 |
Director: Andy Humphries
Producers: Christine Gayford, Graham Gayford, Cass Marks & Anita Overland
Screenplay: Andy Humphries
Cast:
Dave: Johnny Vegas
Ferris: Mackenzie Crook
Jeremy: Mark Gatiss
Tolly: Dominic Coleman
Joan: Kate Robbins
Ruth: Lucy Davis
Chip Shop Girl: Helen Latham
Poppy: Nicola Reynolds
Kevin: Robert Harrison
Helen: Jenny Jay
Joan’s Mum: Evie Garratt
Shelley: Julia Davis
Gloria: Kay Purcell
Sex Party Host/(Himself?): Adrian Chiles
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.