Amazon.com: The luminous Audrey Tautou (Amelie) stars in Dirty Pretty Things, a riveting thriller about an illegal immigrant in London named Okwe (Chiwetal Ejiofor, Amistad), a doctor in his homeland who now works days as a taxi driver and nights as a hotel desk clerk. When a hooker tells him there's a mess in one of the hotel's bathrooms, Okwe finds a human heart in the toilet. He soon discovers a snare of desperation, poverty, and black-market body organs--and finds that his only friend, a Turkish hotel maid (Tautou), may be the next to be caught. Dirty Pretty Things, skillfully directed by Stephen Frears (High Fidelity, Dangerous Liaisons, My Beautiful Laundrette), fuses taut suspense with an unsettling portrait of life among the British underclass of immigrant service workers. Thanks to the excellent cast and script, the movie makes its social points subtly, while the gripping story coils itself around you. --Bret Fetzer
gripping intense and engaging Probably the best cast I have seen ever, and they are all relatively little known actors. An absolutely must see if you can handle it. The struggle as it really is rather than the glorified struggle Hollywood often clings to.
Poorly Scripted But Still Engaging Dirty Pretty Things is a reasonably good thriller set in the rather depressing world of immigrant workers in London. The film is part horror story as a hotel clerk from Nigeria discovers that the hotel is being used for an illegal human organ scheme. Chiwetel Ehiiofor is very strong in the lead role and Audrey Tautou does well as a Turkish immigrant who is struggling to survive and escape London for New York. Where the movie bogged down a bit for me is in some of the moralizing dialogue gets to be a bit too contrived and not true to character. Other than that flaw the film is unusual in it's subject matter and interesting on a number of levels. It certainly demonstrates the cruel and mercenary nature of people who are ready to exploit the vulnerable among us.
Dirty Pretty Things Shows how you can be taken advantage of as a desparate not legal citizen. Great foreign film.
A Quiet Fierce Passion Stephen Frears has two Oscar nominations for Best Director: "The Grifters" in 1990 & "The Queen" in 2006. This film struck me as a bit creepy. The organ harvesting plotline made me squeamish.
Chiwetel Ejiofor is a British actor born to Nigerian parents. For this film, he was nominated as "Most Promising Performer" by the Chicago Film Critics Association. I recently saw him in the David Mamet-penned Redbelt [Theatrical Release] where he uses some of the same quiet emotions as the martial arts instructor with ethics. He won Best Supporting Actor from the Independent Spirit Awards in 2007 for "Talk to Me." As the hard-working immigrant, he does an excellent job with a quiet fierce passion.
Audrey Tautou made such an impression in Amelie that even subsequent films like The Da Vinci Code (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition) don't automatically come to mind. In this film, she is convincing as Senay, a Turkish immigrant who longs to go to America. She plays a fine balance between need and desire.
Sophie Okonedo who had a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for "Hotel Rwanda" in 2004 does an excellent job as the prostitute Juliette. She provides comic relief, being constantly on the lookout for new business.
Sergi Lopez is excellent as the hotel manager Sneaky. His amazing range as an actor can be seen by viewing An Affair of Love and his blockbuster performance in "Pan's Labyrinth" that earned him a Best Actor nomination from Spain's Goya Awards. He also won Best Actor from the French Academy of Cinema in 2000 for "With a Friend Like Harry..." Lopez can portray flawed & repulsive or sensitive & passionate. He does an excellent job in this film.
Benedict Wong plays the pathologist Guo Yi. The film was written by Steve Knight who brought us TV's "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?" The film is a contrast between the darkness and desperation of poverty and the ability to hope. Enjoy!
A very cozy movie. I liked it. This movie is intriguing with a very unusual storyline. I really enjoyed it. Very poignant at times, specially the final scenes.
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