Note: The film reviewed here actually goes under the name of The 51st State here in the UK. As far as I am aware, the name is the only difference between this and the American release. Can’t explain the change of moniker really, did American’s get offended at England being referred to as the 51st State of the USA? Who knows?

It’s a sorry fact these days that in order for a British film to succeed overseas, it needs to have a famous, established, household name. Preferably American too. Look at the evidence: the fabulous Four Weddings And A Funeral acquired the services of Andie McDowell (hey, I didn’t say they had to be necessarily talented); the god awful Bridget Jones’s Diary had Renee Zellweger; and the - well, let‘s not resort to profanities here, let‘s just say it‘s diabolical and leave it at that - Notting Hill had some bird with more teeth than the Osmond family. Three British comedies, three imported American stars, three massive box office hits. Indeed, if there’s a pattern to be found here, perhaps it‘s that the less acute the script, the bigger the main star will have to be in order for it to achieve the hard sell.

So when you hear that Samuel L. Jackson himself starred in the 2001 UK flick Formula 51 the alarm bells started ringing. Is the quality really that bad that the only way they can offload the thing is by getting one of the coolest actors in the world to boast his name to its credentials? Or, on the flip-side, is Formula 51 of such high quality that it fully justifies its association with Jackson? After all, Brad Pitt and Benicio Del Toro lent their weight to Snatch and that can hardly be described as desperate casting, can it?

In answer to both of the above questions is ’yes and no’. No, Formula 51 is not an unmatchable disaster, and it does have many endearing qualities. But you get the feeling that had Jackson not signed on, Formula 51 would have struggled to get out of the starting blocks.

Jackson stars as kilt-wearing chemist Elmo McElroy, a scientific genius unable to legally study in his field after being busted for drug abuse the very day he graduated. Forced to ply his trade on the wrong side of the law McElroy takes to dealing narcotics with underground drug baron The Lizard (Meat Loaf). Predictably, however, he wants out of the whole seedy business, especially so when he creates a substance 51 times stronger than Cocaine, Acid and Ecstasy combined.

Having set up a deal to distribute the drug to England crime boss Leopold Durant (a cameoing Ricky Tomlinson) for $20 million, McElroy double-crosses his boss - in a decidedly fiery manner - and hops on a plane across the Atlantic to Liverpool, where he is chaperoned by scouse gangster, rabid xenophobe, and all round hard nut Felix De Souza (Robert Carlyle). But before you can say “you messed with the wrong guy” our two anti-heroes are forced to go on the lam whilst trying to dodge the unwanted attention of female assassin Dakota (Emily Mortimer), and crooked cop Kane (Sean Pertwee).

Screenwriter Stel Pavlou - if you can credit him as such, his original script went through no less than 19 re-writes - packs in as much North England humour as possible (particularly the ongoing hatred between Manchester United and Liverpool supporters. Naturally, being a Liverpudlian himself, Pavlou tends to favour the latter on many an occasion), including as many instantly quotable one-liners and gratuitous swearing as humanly possibly. The film also throws in an amusing cultural imbalance between McElroy and DeSouza, as both argue over what constitutes as ‘true English language’, which country has the right to call their national sport ‘football’, and the general gulf between American and English traditions. It’s an age-old argument, granted, but nevertheless entertaining.

If anything, Formula 51 is proof that British movies aren‘t restricted to the romcom genre, with a succession of comic shoot-outs aplenty, punch-ups, explosions, an absolute screamer of a car chase, and drug-fuelled raves all making an appearance, setting about its material with less restraint than any movie recently born on UK shores. There’s also a Tarantino-esque sense of malicious glee about the manner in which many of the minor roles are dispatched, specifically the crushingly hilarious demise of Durant.

But this is also the main problem here. Not the swearing, or sadistic bloodshed, but the obvious desire of Pavlou for his film to be as American an English film can get. Sure, all out action flicks from the UK are thin on the ground, but there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before. If it was yet another crime comedy actioner from the Hollywood stable it would do steady business in the States then come over here and no-one would expect anything above or below the ordinary from it.

But director Ronnie Yu seems to believe that because British films don’t normally contain scenes were one of the leads is shot in the ass by a sniper, he can get away with a total lack of originality. Formula 51 desperately wants to take on the American big boys, but sadly pales into insignificance, thanks to it’s cliché-heavy script.

There are also far too many sub-plots integrated into the story, restricting character development on a massive scale. So as well as our heroes attempting to sell their formula to big-time Merseyside dealer Iki (Rhys Ifans), they also find themselves harassed by local skinheads (the result of which result in the biggest shit orgy ever witnessed on the big screen), as well as a clunky sub-plot involving Felix and Dakota as ex-lovers. Okay, so intertwining farce is something Guy Ritchie has made a career out of, but Yu’s hand is less assured, failing to believably weave the various characters and storylines into as coherent and free-flowing a story as he’d like.

That said, there’s a certain amount of juvenile pleasure in watching Jackson strut around in a kilt, laying down the smack to all and sundry. If you’re going to make a laugh-out-loud, graphically violent, crime world comedy thriller, then he already comes with a proven track record. Sure, maybe he’s a little too cool - you never really feel that he’s ever in any danger - but you’re sure to get a buzz as he takes out an entire hotel lobby with nothing more than a golf club. Carlyle (as ever) brings a touch of humanity and dimension to his psycho nut-job role, coming across as the Liverpudlian cousin of Trainspotting‘s Begbie.

Ifans is energetically over-the-top with a cracking comic performance; Meat Loaf is great as the ‘fat kingpin’, while Mortimer falls on the right side of girl-next-door-sexy, as the kitten with a nasty set of claws. There are also a multitude of appearances from various English soap opera actors who serve as little more than cannon fodder, who are as effective as they are incidental.

Formula 51 is the kind of film Hollywood churned during the early part of the 90’s, a simple action film that believes itself to be a lot cleverer than it actually is. Originality, smooth storyline and subtlety are all forsaken in the name of big explosions (both machine and human), macho dialogue and implausible twists. It’s kind of like being carpet-bombed by repetitive obscenities and over-amplified rock music, which is not always a bad thing, but had Yu concentrated more on the matter in hand, rather than trying to make the story as broad and complicated as possible, and ditched the pretentious attitude, Formula 51 could have been a lot more than the Sunday afternoon filler that it is.


Recommended: Yes