This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Trade War
Plot Overview
Virgin FM radio predicts a hot day and advises Londoners
to “enjoy getting
sweaty together.” We recall a story courtesy Ted Bell
where a man gets a girl into an apartment only find himself
dazed by a spotlight, and then he “heard the unseen voice
boom in English. An American Negro, by the sound of him. He'd been
set up by this bitch” (262.) In this case foxy Madison (Katia
Caballero) slips a mickey finn to an unsuspecting ladies man James
(Sean Neill,) then admits a Negro doctor Samuel (Sean Francis) to
the apartment. Soon James is on ice separated from his liver secured
in a briefcase. They await “the buyer [who] will be here in a couple of
hours.” Okay.
The scene shifts to one of perplexed
policemen—one of them a Negro—examining carnage in
Hyde Park, then to the police station where the sole surviving witness,
a Negress, Miss Martha Bedford (Anjela Lauren Smith) fingers
a mug shot of a powerful gangster named Christian (Gary Olsen) whom
she saw murder a Negro rival and then order his boys to kill all the
witnesses. The cops have been after him a long time, but they have
to wait till morning for forensics and legal to get done before they
arrest him. Elsewhere there's also a delay with the doctor's
delivery (“We
hang on here till the buyer collects.”)
Christian gets a tip about the witness from “our friend in the force” and sends a couple hit men to take care of her. The cops sustain some damage, and Chief Inspector Duggan (John Benfield) perceiving an unknown security breach sends a text message to James his undercover man to have him set up a “somewhat safer” place in a hotel to hold her. Dr. Samuel answers a ringing phone to discover, he'd “just operated on an undercover police officer.” Samuel doesn't want the heat from the cop being incommunicado, so he decides to pose as him thinking he can get away with it for the one day. Madison thinks, “This is a stupid idea.” The witness's contingent of guards set it up. One of them is the rat. Christian uses a diversion to deflect backup and then sends wave after wave of assassins to silence the witness (“This young lady is proving to be a major irritation.”)
Ideology
Murder and mayhem abound both on-screen and off, corresponding to the biblical formula, (Prov. 30:21-23) “For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear: For a servant when he reigneth; and a fool when he is filled with meat; For an odious woman when she is married; and an handmaid that is heir to her mistress.”
“For a servant when he reigneth”
has to do with the erstwhile Negro servant class being elevated
to equality. Formerly, an unknown Negro undercover cop would
be immediately suspect, and a quick check with the office would mean
the jig was up. Now he is accepted at face value and the real one
gets snuffed in the cross fire negating any hard-won testimony he could
have given on whatever he was working on.
Then there's the seemingly innocent
Negress, their star witness having been retrieved from beneath a pile
of bodies in the park. Yeah, right! A priority check of her
would reveal what? that she was part of a rival gang, packing, there
to eliminate Christian? Christian's defense would be sure to dig up
whatever they needed, and she'd be no use as a prosecution witness,
so why bother protecting her? That would have saved the police station
getting shot up, the damage to the hotel, and the distractive explosions
around town. Just saying.
“A fool when he is filled with meat” would be rookie Det Oliver “Olly” Walsh (Richard Demsey) who wasn't too much on the ball but was preoccupied with filling his face with room service food.
“An odious woman when she is married” was team member Det Helen Lucas (Amita Dhiri) who'd been involved for a long time with team member Det Paul Cameron (James Oliver,) but he tells her he's not ready for more commitment. Their strained relationship distracts her from her job.
“An handmaid that is heir to
her mistress” has to do with the business sphere eclipsing the
domestic. Here femme fatale Madison apologizes in French to
James—who doesn't speak it—for what she's about to do
to him, saying it's “just business.” The liver is supposed
to cleanse the system of alcohol from the champagne they were drinking,
not to be sold on the black market. All these factors contribute to
the murder and mayhem in this movie.
Production Values
“” (2000) was written and directed by Alexander Finbow. It stars Gary Olsen, Tony London and David Sonnenthal. Great acting ameliorated a cheesy plot. Gary Olsen was impressive as an ambitious capo.
MPAA rated it R for strong pervasive violence, language and some sexuality. The British SWAT Team seemed more cannon fodder than commandos, and the soap opera portion a bit of stiff-upper-lip, at least to my American sensibilities. The humor, such as there was, was zany. It's a merciful 1½ hours long.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
“24 Hours” might be perceived differently according to which side of the pond you're on. There could also be a generational difference. The younger generation(s) have been trained to judge blacks on their character rather than on their skin color, but 24 hours here is not enough time to make adequate assessments, so the older generation(s) may have lower expectations than the younger of how a black part or two will turn out. If the witness turns out to be a bad player, it could make a grousing grandpa look smart, otherwise just regressive.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Edge of your seat action-packed fun. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Well, at least you can't see the strings. Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Three stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture is quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Bell, Ted. Phantom. Copyright © 2012 by Theodore A. Bell. New York: HarperCollins Pub., First Edition. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org