Film

High Heels and Low Lifes (2001)

Director: Mel Smith

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

In a bad mood with her boyfriend, a digital sound sculptor, for not paying her enough attention, nurse Shannon (Driver) spends the evening dancing at the disco and moaning with her pal Frances (McCormack), an actress tired of appearing in fringe theatre and voicing cartoons. Things brighten up when they're alone in a room with the boyfriend's scanner as it crackles to life. Scary, but they persevere with it, and are soon eavesdropping on a neighbourhood bank robbery. Opportunity knocks: they plan to fox the villains and pocket the cash. Scrapes ensue but a policy of non-violence ensures only minor injuries occur for which they can't apologise enough. So what do you get when you cross the director of Mr Bean with the writer of Spice World? A lecherous, reactionary Britcom that sneers at all things new and different while jumping on every bandwagon in town. Relying on lame self-referential questions to cover its tracks, it collapses into a directionless mess whose patronising brand of girlpower fails on every level to disguise its creators' hankering after the golden age of Miss World.

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