The Deadly Females

'Tart I may be, thanks to you, but cheap I am not!' someone bawls at her boorish hubby before summoning one of Tracy Reed's gang of Kensington hit-women to dispose of him. Writer/producer/director/editor Winter strives to make exactly the same distinction in this sex-and-crime potboiler with classy notions ('you' in his case would be the impecunious, short-sighted British film industry). The film's nasty goings-on are supposedly a comment on the 'Savage Seventies'; but it takes more than close-ups of newspaper headlines screaming about IRA attacks and Bunny Girl murders to establish a fruitful connection, and the film's inept pretensions make it even more pernicious than your straightforward sexploiter. Reed's Godmother figure is cool enough to win the respect of any praying mantis, but the only glimmer of style Winter shows is to shoot one set-up through the back of a wicker chair.