Duchess
                                    
Director: Neil Marshall
Year: 2024
Rating: 5.0
A low rent female revenge film that brought in $43,000 at the box office before wisely leaving for the better world of video. I wonder who those guys were that bought tickets. Family? Not that this is dreadful. But definitely watching it at home with cheap snacks and the pause button is a better option. Of course, that is true of most films these days. The director is Neil Marshall who has made a few well-respected films - but this falls a little flat in a land littered with way too many action films that have more sizzle and less talk. Still, a female revenge film is in my sweet spot and though I knew what I was watching was not Masterpiece Theater, it was good enough for tonight. I guess I have become a low rent viewer.




"I talk dirty, I hit hard, I drink my vodka straight". That is our Duchess (Charlotte Kirk) in her cockney accent after she has just thrown some guy to a tiger. This little bit of English crumpet hits the discos at night dressed to the nines and along with her friend Michelle (Mellissa Laycy) picks pockets like daisies on a picnic. Rob (Philip Winchester of the Strike Back series) watches her in operation and is turned on. Different strokes for different folks. Being a crook himself, this intrigues him and he makes a play for her and they fall in love. He along with his two close friends Danny (Sean Pertwee) and Baraka (Hoji Fortuna) are in the diamond business - working with African crime lords on the supply side and selling them to Charlie (Stephanie Beacham). All is good.




They move to the island of Tenerife off Spain and have a lovely house overlooking the ocean. Not bad for a Cockney girl. But his business partners are not thrilled that he is in love. He has lost a step. So, they send someone to kill her. Bad idea. After Rob is put out of operation and the business taken over, she decides to take it back. By killing everyone with Danny and Baraka by her side. Or putting a nail through a man's hand or ironing another one's genitals. The girl plays rough. The action choreography is not particularly convincing and neither is the plot, some of the writing - especially her inner narrative is weak - and the love between the two of them seems as likely as an orange and an apple mating. At two hours it stretches your patience a little bit, but I came out unharmed.