THE BUSINESS
US, 2005, 97 minutes, Colour.
Danny Dyer, Tamer Hassan, Geoff Bell, Georgina Chapman.
Directed by Nick Love.
The business here is drug importing and dealing. It is a greedy business, a tough and rough business that destroys friendships, degrades and destroys lives. That would be the moral of the film if its central character really believed it. At times he sounds as if he does, but he has had a taste of what is optimistically called ‘the good life’ (which simply means plenty of money that gives you the power to do anything you want in a luxury context) but his final remarks at the end of the film as he drives off into a hoped-for new sunrise are cynical and give the lie to it.
Not that The Business is not well-made. Like Sexy Beast, it leaves a squalid London to bask in Spanish sun and good weather. On the southern coast near Gibraltar, English ‘businessmen’ can become filthy rich pretty quickly (and import via secret drops of drugs through nearby Morocco). Spanish authorities connive when it suits them – and are ruthless when it doesn’t. Fortunes depend on luck and connections.
Writer-director, Nick Love, knows young British adults (Goodbye Charley Bright) and knows thugs (The Football Factory). His star Danny Dyer appeared in both films and is central to The Business. Despite Dyer’s interviews with the press describing himself as caught up in drugs, promiscuity and violence after being a successful child actor, he still comes across on screen as basically a good young man, not quite as bad as the screenplay portrays him. Tamer Hassan as the more genial owner of a club and mastermind of The Business combines charm and shrewdness, except when he becomes an addict himself and his prosperity vanishes. On the other hand, Geoff Bell as a jumped-up criminal looks and sounds truly frightening (as he is as a football hooligan leader in Green Street).
There are enough headlines and newspaper stories to suggest that what we see he is quite true – but it is, ultimately, something of an ugly and cynical film despite the Spanish clean and clear air.
1. The prevalence of British crime thrillers in the 90s and the beginning of the 21st century? Portraits of criminals, action shows? The UK style, portrait of gangsters, moral perspective?
2. The setting of the 80s, the UK, the references to Margaret Thatcher, the anti-royal sentiments? The place of gangsters and crime in London?
3. The contrast with Spain, the sunny Mediterranean, Gibraltar? The Spanish coast? Beauty and affluence? Squalor?
4. The musical score, the songs?
5. The voice-over, Frankie and his life story, an earnest young man, experiencing abuse in his family, the transition to greed, the violence, to cynical perspectives on life? His involvement in crime, drugs, women? His father’s comment – to avoid these? His not avoiding them, indulgence?
6. Frankie’s life in London, his mother, the man violent towards her, Frankie bashing him? His friend, taking the bag and delivering it in Spain?
7. Charlie and his bar, the flashbacks to Charlie’s criminal background? The robberies? His lifestyle, personal loner(?), liking Frankie and deciding to help him, clothes etc? Making him as a partner? Charlie’s way of life, the increased dealing with drugs, the collage of the piles of marijuana? The influence of the mayor, his wanting them to limit it to marijuana, not to cocaine? The drops of cocaine from Morocco? Charlie and his use of cocaine, its effect? Falling out with Sammy – seeing him plant Frankie’s watch? Supplying the mayor with the young man from London? The confrontation with the mayor?
8. Sammy and Carly? Sammy’s immediate dislike of Frankie? Sammy’s lifestyle, as partner with Charlie, involved in the action, the incident with the watch and Frankie, the falling out with Charlie? Sammy and his personality, sadistic, cruel?
9. The lifestyle in Spain, golf, tennis, the affluent houses, pools?
10. Charlie’s bar, life there? The Sunday dinner, English style? Running out of lamb – and going and shooting a sheep? Charlie and his drugs, losing the bar?
11. Sammy, the background in London, drugs, prostitution? Meeting the mayor, the fork? His gaining Charlie’s bar – and not wanting to relinquish it?
12. The plan to kill the mayor, Ronnie and his associates, his being killed, his head on a pike? Charlie’s bar and his being excluded?
13. Charlie and Frankie, their collapse, the six months later, the opening sequence and it being reprised, the guns? The washing powder, the deals with the pushers? The failure? Seeing Ronnie’s wife and the other women, the memory of the thousand pounds offered, their wanting to steal it?
14. Frankie going to Cadiz, the squalor, the man with his throat slit? Frankie and his return?
15. Charlie, wanting to set up the bar for the party, Sonny agreeing? Nobody turning up?
16. Frankie and Carly, the sexual encounter, the plan, luring Sammy, the brutality of his death in the sewer, being shot by the coast guard? The double cross? Frankie and Carly – and his abandoning her?
17. The final captions about what happened to everyone – and whether crime paid or not?
18. Frankie, his character, living solely in his criminal work, lack of moral sense, relationships? His experience of a successful criminal – and going into this kind of future?
