High Heels And Low Lifes

Every so often, I realise that I've just watched and enjoyed a chick flick.

Last night, whilst trying to get Battlestar Galactica to start on the DVD player (VCRs are so much quicker) I had the TV on, and spotted the name "Mel Smith" swim past as the director of a film just starting.

Ever since Bean – The Ultimate Disaster Movie I've been converted to Smith's directorial work, so I quickly abandoned the DVD and was in for the duration.


High Heels And Low Life - if you just remove the swearing (which even I found mostly funny in context) – is a charmingly old-fashioned comedy about two women getting caught-up in a bank robbery. When I say "old-fashioned" I'm talking about the movie's style. There are no whooshy post-modern pans and zooms, very few special effects, and absolutely no glued-in romantic sub-plot. There is a great split-screen montage at one point, but it's so leisurely, and there to tell the story well.

What we do have, simply, is a series of funny situations in which the stakes keep escalating and the characterisation makes you feel quite safe and at home. And the geography works. When the protagonists get a train to Brighton via Haywards Heath, I knew the exact bridge they were waiting to go over. (although I did pickily think that Haywards Heath station looked more like Lancing)

Why doesn't anyone else make films like this any more?

Maybe they do, and I never watch them.


Shannon: "Guys like that won't take orders from women. They just pulled off a multi-million pound bank robbery and some woman rings them up asking for £300,000? I don't think they're gonna take you seriously."

Frances: "It's the 21st century. Women are doing every kind of job. We can do extortion."

Shannon: "What are you trying to do? Raise their consciousness or get the money?"

Frances: "Ideally, both."