Beatrice (Asia Argento) is a thief known as B. Monkey who is tired of the life of crime. Alan Furnace (Jared Harris) is a sweet teacher who moonlights as a DJ in a hospital. He falls for B. She sees him as a frog who is better than any of the supposed princes. She's part of a trio with brother-like Bruno (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) led by drug-addicted Paul Neville (Rupert Everett). Paul owes crime boss Frank money and Paul wants B. to do more jobs for him.Asia has volatile sexuality. Jared Harris is a character actor with a co-star face which fits the character perfectly. Rupert is interesting as a creepy mess. JRM is terrific as always. I wish they have somebody with more threatening intensity as Frank. This is a nice little neo-noir crime drama. It's overshadowed by other more stylish British crime dramas at that time. It needs a little more moodiness and it's handicapped by missing a caper. These kinds of crime drama usually involves some sort of caper. The movie does need a more explosive, darker alternate ending. It's leading towards that for the whole time and it needs to go through with it. It needs a bit more overall style and the title is pretty stupid. Nevertheless, I love a good neo-noir and Asia is terrific.

It isn't quite a genre, but there sure is a tightly related collection of films that rely on an actress to charm us.The form is simple: find a woman with intrinsic energy, and shape a story to pull that out. We fall in love just like the usually helpless guy in the story. Events surround and threaten, all designed to highlight the specific charms of the focus and show that we (through our representative) will stick with the girl.Its a simple narrative fold, a trick to engage us in the story. The story is the girl, and the tighter we follow her, the more we are drawn into the story. The problem of course is that its all designed to pull us in, with nothing of value happening while we are in. The usual solution is to acknowledge that and make a point of the future being empty, deliberately so. So Deckard goes of with Rachel into a void. Its about the staying, the belonging.There are only three real values in this. Does the girl charm? Is the story and the charming integrated? What's the world they send us into at the end?This girl is the daughter of a filmmaker who specializes in doing violence to such characters, layering heavy noir dynamics on them. So there's that. She's particularly seductive in an aggressive way, not at all say, like Dalle in Betty Blue, where we the viewer are complicit in the seduction. Dalle matters. We carry her away after the film.Our girl here is nude a few times as if that matters a lot. The hapless guy is a radio storyteller, teacher, musician, champion of social justice as if we needed more than one anchor.She's also a wonderful thief, as if we needed some "Ms 45" seduction, that sort of ping when the sex is with someone who has killed. So its all overloaded. The last 20 minutes is close to lovely. Its been done before, this business of painting a derelict room in the wild. (I recently saw it to good effect in Stromboli.) Our girl turns lovely in the country. But its the sideshow with two gay friends that makes this worth watching.These guys are played by Rupert Everett and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. If you study narrative, you'll appreciate how this backstory supports the whole. Its quite lovely because she is most sexual, nude and loved when in the company of these men. It gives her an excuse to show us that she is inherently seduction, not deliberately so. It provides a footing for love that is outside of sex, and though based on obsession and addiction transcends them by using them.Everett really seems to understand this. Its his best performance by far. You almost fall in love with him instead of her by misdirection, because that's where the passion is. So it works, sex without sex, love by capture.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Saw this film the other night on cable. Michael Radford's "Il Postino" had played the night before, and never are there two more different films than "B Monkey" and the other one! The novel by Andrew Davies was a joy and it's translation to the screen suffers because of the adaptation we see in front of our eyes. It appears this movie has been badly chopped up as indicated by comments by Mr. Radford.This is a film about opposite characters that attract one another in ways that in other circumstances, they wouldn't have met. We meet the nerdish Alan Furnace, a teacher who also volunteers at a hospital where he loves to play jazz at night. He is fond of the great Django Reinhardt, a legend guitarist, whose records one hears on the background.Beatrice is a young woman with a past. She is trying to get out of that life and the unsavory characters around her. When she meets Alan, she has no clue of what is going to happen to her, but she falls for him. Alan wants to get out of London to a quieter and more subdued atmosphere in which he feels Beatrice will feel happy too.Beatrice's past gets in the way as Paul and Bruno come to interrupt the idyllic home life Alan and Beatrice have made for themselves, but in spite of the dangers, in an ironic twist, the couple finally manage to find peace in their newly found paradise.Jared Harris is perfect as Alana. Asia Argento gives a complex reading on Beatrice a role that offers her a lot of opportunities. Rupert Everett and Jonathan Rhys Meyers make good contributions to the film.The original film score by Luis Bacalov, a contributor to Mr. Radford in "Il Postino", is easy on the ears. The other non original songs are well selected and give the film another texture.Although Mr. Radford did his best with the film, one can only recommend the viewer to check out Andrew Davies novel that is the basis of the movie.

B. Monkey is a showcase for Asia Argento's acting skills and screen presence. What you also get is a lot of britpop, from when it was cool and "in". However, the idea that lively girl at the edge of society can't do better than shack up with a straightlaced primary school teacher who lives for the most bloodless 40s jazz and to boot retires to the Yorkshire Dales... That takes a lot of suspension of disbelief.Wisely, the knight in shining armor, who looks like David Caruso and talks like John Major isn't featured on any of the video covers or movie posters. Asia Argento, on the other hand, bares all and looks kind of attractive, but it's the beauty of youth. She also needs to work on her elocution, which at first is cute, but is going to limit her as an actress.Rupert Everett is reliable as the bisexual toff heroin addict, but he never jumps out and runs away with the script. Patrick Rhys-Meyers is a young actor to keep an eye on, though, one of those guys who have bit parts in loads of movies, while you never notice them because they act so well that they blend into the background like chameleons (John Seymour Hoffman is one example, or Donal Logue).On the whole, this movie is as bland as the music the lead listens to. Understatement can be taken too far.