Ex-convicts Eddie (Sam Rockwell) and Paul (Ben Schwartz) are on parole and working in a New York diner. Their lives are a dead end until an English lawyer Katherine Rookwood (Phoebe Fox) walks in with an offer they can’t refuse. What follows is a flurry of gunfire, close combat, stolen jewellery and Eddie’s terrible attempts at tackling the cockney accent.
While the apparent inspiration for this movie was the action capers of the 80s and 90s there’s a far stronger whiff of Lock, Stock lite here than anyone would care to admit. The smash cuts, the London setting, the jukebox soundtrack and the fact that every other word is an expletive, Blue Iguana shares more in common with the direct to DVD, “geezer feature” than it does the works of Chuck Norris, Steven Segal, Bruce Willis or Treat Williams for that matter. The dialogue is dulled to a matte finish and the characters have very specific quirks that only work within the construct of a naff screenplay, for contrivance’s sake. I’m sure the filmmakers thought they were working on something very clever, but sadly this flick is at least 15 years past its sell by date.
Ben Schwartz play neurotic well but sadly is a one note joke that fails to land and Sam Rockwell is given very little to play with to the point where he is completely wasted. The only saving grace is Phoebe Fox as the wronged lawyer out for revenge but even her character suffers from a She’s All That turn in which the, “ugly” duckling turns out to be a swan after all. All that aside, I don’t consider it fair to apportion blame the to the actors for their underwritten characters.
It’s not that Blue Iguana is a terrible movie, it’s just incredibly played out and tired. There are occasional, crass, funny moments but these are few and far between. The editing throughout the action sequences is a swing and a miss for what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish but at least they were trying something.
Blue Iguana is available now.
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