In the wake of Quentin Tarantino’s ascendance to his pop culture throne in the ‘90s, dozens of imitators tried to mimic his approach to filmmaking, only to fall flat on their faces. It turns out that what he does is much harder than it looks. As all of those Tarantino wannabes were to “Pulp Fiction,” Neil Marshall’s “Duchess” is to the work of Guy Ritchie, particularly “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels,” the filmmaker’s international breakthrough. Incongruent needle drops, freeze frames with character names, overheated narration, and tough tales of interconnected criminals – “Duchess” wants SO badly to be a Ritchie film that he almost deserves co-writing credit on the project. Although he probably wouldn’t want that. “Atrocious” might have been a better title.
The remarkably boring Charlotte Kirk plays Scarlett Monaghan, a woman approached by a suave gentleman named Robert McNaughton (Philip Winchester) while out with her deadly dull boyfriend at the club one night. Robert and Scarlett have instant chemistry, so they pretty quickly dispatch with Mr. Wrong and begin a steamy affair before Scarlett discovers how Robert makes his money. He’s a dealer in massive diamonds, which means he travels in an underworld of shady characters that requires that he have a couple of criminal allies of his own in the loyal Danny (Sean Pertwee) and Baraka (Hoji Fortuna). Colin Egglesfield plays an antagonist of Robert/Scarlett, while Stephanie Beacham is forced to deliver some of the film’s worst dialogue as a crime lord of the jewelry scene.
Without spoiling, Scarlett ends up forced into more action than she could have expected when she responded to the flirtatious, snappy dresser that fateful night. Marshall, Kirk, and Simon Farr’s script wants to be a Guy Ritchie variation on “Kill Bill,” a story of a woman pushed to vengeance by people who underestimated her. Still, they don’t come close to closing that sale in any notable capacity. Kirk just isn’t charismatic enough or believable when it comes to action (or character or dialogue or anything), which could explain why Marshall resorts to extreme violence to try to make a truly dull film more interesting. At one point, a hot iron is pressed to a torture victim’s penis. At another, oil is poured on a man’s face and lit aflame. It’s like the torture porn version of “Snatch.” Yeah, not fun.
It doesn’t help that the plotting and tone of “Duchess” are so exaggeratedly stupid that the whole thing plays almost like a parody of Ritchie instead of an homage, one that goes on for what feels like forever – it’s overlong at nearly two hours, and I swear to you it feels twice as long. And when it all ends with a door wide open for a sequel? It’s more of a threat than a promise.
