Movie: Dead Man Running

Do you remember Venn Diagrams from school? It was the best bit of drawing you got to do in maths - a circle that represented all the people who have had number ones, and all the people called Cheryl. The intersection of which contains – by my maths – Cheryl’s Cole and Baker. It’s a useful visual way of boiling down a number of propositions until you might get one sole representative.

So I invite you to get your pencil out and draw the following. A circle for 'British Gangster Films'. A circle for 'Films Produced by Footballers'. And while you’re at it – why not draw a circle for 'Starring Danny Dyer (by name)' and 'Featuring 50 Cent'. You have adequately drawn all you need to know about Dead Man Running. You didn’t need to draw the circle for 'Lousy Movies' because all three of the above circles pretty much covered it.

Dead Man Running is a gangster comedy where our hero, Tamer Hassan plays Nick, a none too bright ex-lag determined to go straight. Unfortunately  for him he has decided to do this by opening up a business with his even dumber mate Danny Dyer promoting skiing holidays in Dubai. If that gag makes you laugh, there is a chance you might like Dead Man Running. Just bear in mind it has to make you laugh an hour and a half later where the corpse of the joke is disinterred for the tenth time. The business was set up with money borrowed from 50 Cent who is playing a loan shark, so no typecasting there.

Due to the credit crunch, a hopeless stab at topicality from the film, Fiddy is calling his debts in and wants his £100,000 back from Nick in 24 hours. And to show how serious he is he sends Phil Davis around to threaten to kill Nick’s wheelchair bound Mum played by Brenda Blethyn.

What follows is an 'Idiots Guide To Being An Idiot Gangster'. Car theft, bare knuckle boxing,dodgy drug deals, a bit of petty thievery, and cold blooded murder. Its a film with a fantastically loose grasp on its own morality, leaving our hero covered in more blood at the end that 50 Cent has ever pretended to have in any of his songs.

Dead Man Running is not as bad as all of the rush of Brit gangster flicks post Lock, Stock, but that’s like saying scrofula is the worst skin disease you can get.

The scenes between Brenda Blethyn and Phil Davis are really rather good, but they highlight how poor the rest of the frenetic comedy really is. As for the footballing producers, Ashley Cole and Rio Ferdinand were clearly ‘merked’ when this one came along. That is still no excuse for a blatant Rio plug in the script. Ashley should leave Cheryl to get the number ones, cos this film is a proper piece of number two.

Dead Man Running is out 30th October - visit Odeon for screening times near you