Dirty Weekend (aka Le Weekend)
Director: Christopher Granier-Deferre
Writer: Geoffrey Gunn
Cast: Jamie Parker, Kirsty Oswald, Pierre Perrier, Bernard Blancan, Didier Vinson
[Screener Review.]
Plot:
Mike (Jamie Parker) and Trish (Kirsty Oswald) have a weekend get-away planned. In France. Because Mike just happens to be Trish’s teacher and Trish just happens to be only sixteen. But while Trish is all about the romance, Mike actually wants to end things – but doesn’t know how. So he’s hatched the plan to kill Trish on their weekend. But both of their plans take a decidedly different turn when they arrive at the cottage and find Vincent (Pierre Perrier) passed out in the bathroom. Vincent just comes from a robbery, is looked for by the police and is not going to let anybody just take his loot from him.
Dirty Weekend is a little too predictable, a little trying too hard to be really good or actually worth paying much attention to – it just falls exactly in the middle between good and bad and that is just pretty boring.
The film is supposed to be a little macabre – something I like a lot. But most of the time, the jokes fall a little flat. So, the high school teacher has an affair with his 16-year-old [no offense to Kirsty Oswald, but 16? Never. Not even movie-16 which is more like 22] student who he drags off to France to kill her because he doesn’t want to leave his wife. And while I can appreciate the jokes about the shovel he buys, or his difficulties renting a car, the entire basis of that situation is something I can’t laugh about.
It also means that he is immediately disqualified as any kind of character to root for. As is the robber they find in the bathroom (“you’re cute” chirps Trish in the middle of a hostage situation as I want to hit something) who just killed his entire crew. And I don’t think we need to talk about the corrupt cops. That only leaves one person that you actually want to survive in any way, which is not a lot and ultimately hurts the film. A little more sympathy would have gone a long way.
The film is not completely bad, but in this case that is almost more of a fault than if it had been. At least with bad movies you have something to laugh about. A comedy that falls as flat as this film is a trite affair indeed.
Most of it is serviceable. Both the writer and director of this are pretty inexperienced in their respective jobs, which can explain a lot. But in the end, it doesn’t make the film any better.
Summarizing: Too mediocre for anything, really.
kalafudra's Stuff 
Sounds like my kind of thing, although I can understand your reasons for disliking it. Thanks for a very interesting review.
If it sounds like your thing, you should definitely check it out! No accounting for taste anyway, right?
No accounting for taste anyway, right?
Well, there’s certainly no accounting for my taste . . . or so my wife keeps telling me.
Well, I’ll let her be the judge of that. But since she is obviously to your taste, being your wife and all, I don’t know whom this assessment says more about. ;)
But since she is obviously to your taste, being your wife and all, I don’t know whom this assessment says more about.
I have pointed this paradox out to her, yea many a time and oft.
Well, as long as you both can live with the paradox, I’d say it’s fine.