HEROES AND VILLAINS

UK, 2006, 104 minutes, Colour.
David Raymond, Jenny Agutter, James Corden.
Directed by Selwyn Roberts.

This drama, with comic touches, does not work particularly well. Trying to come to grips with it while watching, I wondered how and where a television channel would program it to get some ratings. That didn’t seem to work either.

Heroes and Villains is quite ambitious, especially since the writer, David Raymond, was 26 when it was filmed. He is also the main star, his first film, which can give the impression that this is something of a vanity project.

The film is about London twentysomethings who are branded as losers and who set up a business where suspicious spouses and partners can hire them to contrive a meeting where they flirt (and film the encounter as proof of infidelity for the client). They initially make a lot of money but then conscience comes to some of the group – though it takes a lot more time for the hero to wake up to himself.

Probably the main difficulty is the writing which does not always work and which sometimes is too arch, even platitudinous, to be convincing. And some of the acting is too strained or overdone.

It is made for audiences in their twenties who may share some of the situations and crises of the characters, but even then it is limited.