Review No.33: Best Laid Plans

It's interesting when film-makers try and adapt classic literature into a modern setting for example when Clueless took Jane Austen's Emma and placed in California or making Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew into 10 Things I Hate About You. However Best Laid Plans, an adaptation of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, doesn't involve a group of pretty American teens but instead is a sub-Guy Ritchie British crime flick. The film stars Stephen Graham as Danny a fast-talking Scouser who gets in trouble with the local mobsters after he steals a lot of drugs and fails to give them back any money. The biggest parallel between this and Of Mice and Men is the relationship between the charismatic Danny and the slow-thinking but large of build Joseph which bares resembles that between George and Lennie in Steinbeck's text. To make up for his debts the gangsters get Danny to use Joseph in a number of underground cage fights and with the money Danny buys more drugs and begins a relationship with a prostitute despite promising Joseph that the two would relocate to island in a camper van. There is also a subplot involving Joseph's awkward romance with a similarly mentally disabled woman Isabel, played by Maxine Peake, the relationship with her could see Joseph's rise above the gutter but Danny is suspicious of her parents' motives.

The success of Best Laid Plans can be seen in it's quieter moments between Joseph and Danny as the mis-matched pair try and navigate life the best way they can. Stephen Graham is a brilliant actor and the character of Danny is something that he can get his teeth into while Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje is an intimidating presence, he is best known for playing Lost's Mr Eko, so it is interesting to see him play a character who isn't violent but rather protective. Maxine Peake is also predictably excellent as the sweet and charming Isobel but aside from that this feels a little generic. The scenes involving the cage fighting and the characters of the gangsters could be taken out of any film post Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and are predictably generic. Personally I also thought that Danny's relationship with the prostitute Jill progressed a little too quickly for my liking and the end to this plot arc didn't feel right. The ending was a little different from Of Mice and Men but this wasn't a good thing and overall the clever aspects of the plot were outweighed by the fact that this film was trying to conform to a genre that felt outdated several years ago.

Verdict: Three strong performances along cannot save a film that feels like another entry in the long list of sub-par British gangster films so I will award it 5/10