Movie Review: 'Dead Man Running'

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Anyone familiar with football will know that Rio Ferdinand has had a very tough time recently with enough defensive mistakes to fill an episode of You’ve Been Framed. None, however, are as catastrophic as his first foray into movie production, along with England colleague Ashley Cole. Dead Man Running is a 90-minute gangster movie that arrives about a decade too late and is filled with more clichés than a match day commentator.

From the Prodigy-accompanied opening credits everything about it is dated, including the plot. Nick (Tamer Hassan) and Bing (Danny Dyer) are two “dodgy geezers” turned straight. Following a legislative misunderstanding they’re given 24 hours to repay their debts to a loan shark, here in the form of useless rapper turned even worse actor Fiddy Cent. Their “hilarious” journey takes them to an all night rave, a low-grade race track, and worst of all in the eyes of these bumbling mobsters, Manchester.

Dead Man Running exists in a cinematic landscape that even Guy Ritchie would call unoriginal, and it’s almost tempting to say that Revolver was a more enjoyable experience.

Everything from the dialect – full of “slaaaaaaggss” and “keep ya nut about ya” – to the acting, is extremely basic, and that’s saying something when your film features Brenda Blethyn.

The acting is universally bad. It almost seems pointless to criticise Danny Dyer since these days he has become a parody of himself and is a long way from the successful lads mag oik that stole the show in Human Traffic. Hassan is autocue bad, stumbling through the script like he’s been hit on the head by one of his own wooden deliveries. The chemistry between the two is also non-existent, and the only time the script delivers any laughs they are of the unintentional variety. Try not to crease up at the terrible direction and choreography during one of the worst fight scenes to be witnessed outside of an EastEnders episode. 

With a film so unquestionably bad it’s worth pointing out the only praiseworthy aspect: a fantastic scheme established and implemented by footballers Ferdinand and Cole. Every cloud n’all. During the production under-privileged young adults were offered placements in order to teach them working values and provide precious employment experience within a production environment. It’s the sort of goodwill project that deserved a much better outcome than the lazy and derivative Dead Man Plodding.