High Heels and Low Lifes

Bean was a massive hit in America but didn't do too much business over here despite Rowan Atkinson's series doing well on British TV.

Now Smith has chosen to tackle one of the most difficult genres on the big screen which requires the director to skilfully blend the elements of fun and drama.

High Heels and Low Lifes is a comedy thriller that pits two ordinary women against a typical London mob looking for some 'dough'.

It's mildly engaging but somehow fails to convince, even though the premise of two women taking on some gangsters for a laugh is pretty attractive.

There's something quite exciting about a nurse taking the law into her own hands and sorting out some low lifes who've been terrorising the neighbourhood.

But while Smith keeps us involved for about two thirds of the film, his final reel never seems to capture the danger or excitement of the situation. It all seems to happen too easily as the two women turn from everyday chicks to gun-toting heroines.

The story follows Shannon (Minnie Driver) and Frances (Mary McCormack) who are two friends living in London. Shannon is a nurse and Frances is a struggling actress.

Shannon's boyfriend spends most of his nights tuning into mobile phone conversations on his radio scanner but one night the girls overhear a conversation about a bank robbery taking place nearby.

When the police take no interest in their story, the girls dare one another to call the gang and demand a ransom.

But the pair get in too deep and find the criminals are in no mood to play ball with a couple of amateurs.

High Heels and Low Lifes is an oddly low-key affair that chugs along passively until the stakes are raised by the criminals.

McCormack and Driver seem a little too well-groomed to be believed as a pair of innocents caught up in the tangled web of gangland.

Yet they are both watchable and, in passages, pretty funny when the script allows them to be. Their characters, however, aren't developed enough to make us care about them too much. Enough to keep us watching, but not enough to be rooting for them at all times.

Smith's direction is tested to the full here because he has to be a precisionist to make the laughs workable in a dramatic setting.

As in The Tall Guy, he has to keep a strong narrative going while peppering the plot with snatches of comedy.

Here, it's mainly a three-way narrative with the girls, the gangsters and the cops working up to a showdown in claustrophobic London.

The entertainment value is adequate throughout the film but never really reaches the stage where you're laughing out loud or feeling every blow.

It's probably worth a look because it's pretty original but High Heels and Low Lifes is a chick flick without much of a kick. Bring back the silent movie star.