Blu-Ray Review: DEAD CERT Is a Vampire Flick With No Bite
Dead Cert is such a shabby little movie made all the worse because it really didn't have to be. But somewhere along the line, when coming up with the concept "gritty East London gangsters vs. Romanian vampires" someone decided that the concept, thin as it was, was enough--and the results on-screen are such a monumental disappointment (if you have expectations for this sort of thing as I do, that you're tempted to wonder, "why bother?"
As to the plot: well, it actually starts off as something approaching a character drama about a bare-knuckle fighter and his brother-in-law the strip club owner, Freddie (Craig Fairbrass) who quickly becomes the focus of the story as the unveiling of his new club runs parallel with the arrival of a gang of Romanian toughs led by the not at all ominously-named Dante Livenkno (Billy Murray), a criminal with ice water in his veins, and a very suspicious pallor. Here's a tip to all you would-be toughs out there: if a steely Eastern European gangster challenges your top man to a fight for the fate of your bar, simply bow out, particularly when his guy has a foot and a half and 60 pounds on your guy.
Before you know it, Freddie's club has been turned into a den of vampires, complete with re-done red lighting and black leather outfits for the dancers. I think Dante sets the club up in this manner as a feeding ground or recruiting center--it's not really clear. Did I mention the crazy old man starts showing up screaming about the return of "the Wolf" A(Kenneth Mason, suffering in a bad wig in flashbacks)? and without it being entirely clear how it got to this point in the story, Freddie and company are brawling with vampires in the sad little club and then the movie ends.
It's not as though Dead Cert is offensively bad in any way. Several of the actors--particularly Fairbrass--inhabit their roles admirably. In early scenes, Murray actually does a pretty mean, chilly villain--if you tossed out the vampire angle he'd feel like a real threat, all insinuation and frightening will. But when the fangs come out, the movie simply gets goofy without realizing that it's become a comedy. The vampires are super strong except when they're not, and don't really seem to be all that much tougher than their human counterparts. To top it all off, there's a frankly embarrassing scene during the climax as the hero attempts to deliver a "cool" line to the villain while not knowing whether his plan is going to succeed or fail, leading to one of the weakest vampire deaths committed to film.
I'm always wary of volunteering that I was anxious for a movie to end because whenever I hear someone else say that, I assume that they simply checked out of the movie before it was over. Sadly, I was and a couple of times I almost did. There was no real vibe, no tone, no consistent energy to the movie, if you get what I'm saying, and after a (very short) while I was simply waiting for the events on screen to play out so I could tell you about them.
Audio and Video
The picture quality here is fine--actually surprisingly decent given the production. But there are definitely some problems with the audio which has wildly fluctuating audio quality, requiring me to crank up the audio to hear the thick accents and then have to turn it right back down when the pounding, monotonous score started blaring.
Special Features
You get:
Audio commentary
Making-of Dead Cert
Theatrical trailer
But what the set really needed was subs. I hate to be that guy, but sometimes it's hard to understand thick-tongued, no-neck British guys growling their lines through a bunch of swagger.
