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LONDON
Directed & Written by: Hunter Richards.
Produced by: Ash Shah, Paul Davis Miller & Bonnie Timmerman.
Director of Photography: Jo Willems.
Edited by: Tracey Wadmore-Smith.
Music by: The Crystal Method.
Released by: Sony.
Country of Origin: USA. 92 min. Rated R.
With: Chris Evans, Jason Statham, Jessica Biel, Joy Bryant, Kelli Garner, Isla Fisher & Dane Cook.
DVD Features: Commentary by director Hunter Richards & associate producer Ross Weinberg. Deleted scenes. Behind-the-scenes featurette. French audio. Optional English & French subtitles. Previews.

Unfolding over one hell of a drug-fueled going-away party for the title character (Jessica Biel), London charts the misadventures of London and Syd (Chris Evans), her ex-boyfriend. Addicted to drugs after their break-up due to commitment phobia, Sid crashes the festivities at a Manhattan loft accompanied by banker Bateman (Jason Statham, remarkable in a self-parodying, roguish role), from whom he’s just bought coke.

Marketed as an erotic drama, the film is, beneath its Tarantinoesque banter, essentially a wannabe early-Woody Allen-type romantic comedy – maybe confounding expectations. Despite winning performances (especially by the gorgeous Biel, who subtly expresses her character’s thoughts and deserves a better movie), the film is smugly intoxicated by its characters’ musings on love, God, and culture.

London is, nevertheless, enormously watchable. Its imaginative intercutting of flashbacks; the long-lens shots in a bathroom resembling a veritable hall of mirrors; its hysterical dialogue (particularly Bateman graphically commenting on sex), along with comic Dane Cook’s cameo all make the film a fascinating specimen of the self-absorption it means to abjure. From this perspective, one can excuse the lack of logic and order in the flashbacks; characters who apparently do not need to worry about jobs; and the difficulty of empathizing with people who, for all their neuroses, are played by ridiculously attractive actors.

DVD Extras: Of the deleted scenes, the most compelling features a French-accented Leelee Sobieski doing her best Celine Dion impression, but its connection to the movie is tangential. Additionally, the featurette shows off Biel’s natural beauty, which is striking, as is her confession of how a relationship she had as a 16-year-old informed her portrayal. In the commentary, director Hunter Richards sounds like a character out of his movie, whether by design or unintentionally, as he repeatedly insists Montreal (the location of the studio in which they are recording) is the best city in the world – he is allowed to drink, smoke, and get “wasted” while doing the commentary track. Richards, professing to having been inspired by someone he knew for the character of Syd, actually seems to be Syd. Reymond Levy
May 23, 2006