Cheapo DVD Review: Triads, Yardies and Onion Bhajees (2003)

 East End gangster Mad Dave (Dave Courtney essentially playing himself) plans a job with Chacha, head of Indian gangsters The Holy Smokes: Intercept a huge cash payment coming into Heathrow, split the money and everybody goes away happy.
 What neither Dave nor Chacha know is that the 3 young Holy Smokes pulling off the job have their own plans.

  I have to admit that I bought this one for the title. Granted, it is a blatant attempt to ride on the coattails of "Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels". but some on, how many other films have Onion Bhajee in the title?

 I also wanted to see how a London Gangster film worked with Asians in the driving seat.

 The end result is an attempt to mash up Cockney Gangster movie with, Hip-Hop "Hood" movie with a side order of Arty Indie flick, and it's not a great success.

Despite using every trick in the book to look stylish (Weird colour filter, matrix trenchcoats, UK rap soundtrack, lots of guys pointing guns at each other while posturing.)  "Triads.." is a bit dull. Sorry but it is.
  It doesn't help that the acting is average at best which just makes the dialogue look even more leaden, which in turn makes sure that there's no real tension. Nobody seems particularly excited over events so why should I be?

  There's other things I could take issue with, in particular the unexpected comedy segment 3/4 of the way in. At least I'm hoping the were trying to be funny otherwise that was just weird. 

 The ending was pretentious too.

 I lost interest very quickly and ended up forcing myself to watch the rest. That's not my idea of a good movie experience.

How much did I pay for this: 50p
Was it worth it? Nope.  Full marks for trying something different but file under "Nice Idea - Shame About the Film."