High Heels And Low Lifes review

While director Mel Smith is best known for his comedy partnership with Griff Rhys Jones, his attempts at directing have done his bank account no harm either. His first effort, The Tall Guy was an amiable if unspectacular piece of late 80s comedy, while his most recent outing with Bean was one of the highest-grossing films of 1997.

Now comes another light comedy, a crime caper that has the welcome quirk of putting two young but ascendant actresses in the leading roles. It's not the best or most original film released this year, but Smith's assured eye and the experience he picked up making an international blockbuster make it an English comedy that is streets ahead of most current British films .

Shannon (Minnie Driver) and Frances (Mary McCormack) are twentysomething best friends living in London, the former a nurse who wears her heart very much on her sleeve and the latter a no-nonsense American eking out an existence as an actress in the big city. Shannon is bored with her boyfriend, who spends more time intercepting mobile phone messages to use as part of his 'sound sculpture' artworks than he does paying attention to his girlfriend. After a drunken night out, the two girls come home to do some eavesdropping of their own, but instead of picking up conversations about broken hearts and pizza deliveries, they intercept a bank robbery that is happening right around the corner.

Against Shannon's best intentions, Frances comes up with a cunning plan: to blackmail the gangsters into paying them off for their silence. And so the fun begins, as the two inept girlies take on the two underworld heavies behind the heist: Mason (Kevin McNally) and Kerrigan (a rather fruity Michael Gambon). Needless to say, it's only a matter of time before the usual 'only two cops in Britain' ( tv comedians Mark Williams and Kevin Eldon) become involved.

Most of the action flows along quite happily and there are few moments where the film feels stretched. Driver and McCormack have a good onscreen partnership and remain fresh and lively throughout. McCormack in particular does a very impressive job as the Yank abroad, and her impersonation of an East End thug is one of the film's comedic high notes. Nicely filmed by Steven Chivers, London has rarely looked better in a modern film.

If there is a bone to pick, it lies with the fact that the film fails to deliver in the laughter department. This is surprising given writer Kim Fuller's pedigree (from Not the Nine O' Clock News to Red Dwarf, but while the whole thing moves at a decent pace there are very few, if any, laugh out loud moments. Bridget Jones it ain't. A perfectly enjoyable ninety minutes, but it could have been so much better with some fine tuning of the script.

Paul Hurley