Dirty Pretty Things

Paul: The English-language debut of another French ingenue, this movie by Stephen Frears is a small, dark thriller set in a demimonde of illegal immigrants in London about a doctor who's a wanted man in his native Nigeria; a Turkish immigrant who's seeking refugee status, and a sinister trade in human kidneys. Mostly set in and around a small, semi-sleazy hotel in central London, the film has a star-making performance from Chiwetel Ejiofor as the doctor on the run. Audrey Tautou, the luminous star of Amelie gets around her accent problem by playing a Turk and adopting a fairly indeterminate "foreign" accent (for what it's worth, either she's really really good at learning scripts phonetically or she spent a lot of time working very hard on her English, 'cause I remember when she was doing PR for Amelie and her English was only slightly better than my French (which itself begins and ends with "steak frites, c'est vous plait"). It's not a great, landmark, groundbreaking film, but it's certainly a very entertaining diversion.
Herb: Yeah, it was pretty cool. I dug the Chinese guy who worked as a porter at the morgue. You could see the twist at the end coming a mile off, though. Note: despite what the movie poster promises, ya don't get to see Ms. Tautou with her shirt off. Still, I say check it out.

This review was originally posted at paulfrankenstein.org.