Violent Duchess Fires Too Many Blanks
With Duchess, celebrated Dog Soldiers, The Descent, and Centurion director Neil Marshall attempts to channel his inner Guy Ritchie. Working from a scenario co-written with the film’s star (and frequent collaborator — this is the third picture in a row after The Reckoning and The Lair where they have joined forces) Charlotte Kirk, this is a foul-mouthed, hyper-violent British crime flick similar to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Aces or The Gentlemen, with polite nods to 1960s Michael Caine classics like Get Carter and The Italian Job thrown in for good measure.
To the film’s credit, it is handsomely mounted with solid production values and a few well-choreographed action sequences. Unfortunately, it’s also nowhere near as consistently entertaining as any of those aforementioned titles. Worse, it’s almost immediately forgettable, and only its more egregious missteps make a lasting impression.
Scarlett Monaghan (Kirk) is a small-time pickpocket who catches the eye of handsome ex-mercenary Robert McNaughton (Philip Winchester). He’s instantly smitten, and she swiftly falls equally head over heels for him. The other two members of Robert’s close-knit crew of dangerous men, fast-talking Danny Oswald (Sean Pertwee) and the quietly lethal Billy Baraka (Hoji Fortuna), are happy to welcome Scarlett into their chosen family as well, and soon the young woman is jetting to South Africa to be a part of a lucrative diamond smuggling operation.
There are a handful of additional subplots involving a cavalcade of stock genre characters portrayed by a diverse cross-section of familiar faces both big and small, some of whom are pretty great. Most notably, Colm Meaney has a nice scene as Scarlett’s incarcerated father that made me wish he had more to do, while Stephanie Beacham almost steals the entire production as a wickedly amoral crime syndicate godmother nicknamed Charlie.
But the primary throughline deals with what happens after Robert and his crew are betrayed by one of their own and Scarlett is left to pick up the pieces. Her quest for vengeance using any and all means at her disposal is the central focus, all with Kirk narrating the proceedings in a thick cockney accent (just in case viewers can’t quite figure out what’s happening on their own). There are double and triple-crosses galore, big shootouts, and a final twist that’s brazenly (and purposefully?) telegraphed with goofily violent euphoria.
Yet, unlike Marshall’s best pictures (or his work handling two of the most well-known episodes of Game of Thrones, “Blackwater” and “The Watchers on the Wall”), there’s a by-the-numbers feel to most of what happens here that’s sadly underwhelming. The director knows how to keep the pace moving, and he certainly orchestrates most of the action with skillful confidence, but the overall energy output is strangely lacking. Everything continually happens exactly the way I expected, and because of this suspense, tension, and feelings of intense exhilaration are mitigated to the point of nonexistence.
Honestly? I don’t think Marshall is a flippantly uncouth enough filmmaker to pull off the wildly disparate shifts in tone the way someone like Ritchie can when he’s at his best (Snatch, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and the recent WWII lark The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare all come to mind). The comedy doesn’t mesh with the romance, and the romance barely coexists comfortably with the drama. Worst of all, those facets are wildly out of whack with the violence and the action. This creates a motion picture that is fighting an internal war against all of its foundational building blocks and, because of this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that things fall frustratingly apart long before the climax.
There are a few strong elements. A scene in the middle of the South African desert with Scarlett and Robert facing certain death yet with the latter intent on professing his undying love for the former is excellent. There’s another moment between the young woman and Charlie that’s as amusing as it is bone-chilling, Beacham’s performance having a ravenously heartfelt intensity this thriller could have used more of. Best of all is an effectively bloodcurdling home invasion where Scarlett teams up with her maid Aliyah (Giada Falzoni) to thwart an assassin’s repulsive advances, Marshall creating an aura of adrenaline-filled terror that fits the moment perfectly.
Still, eventually my patience with Duchess evaporated. I didn’t have an emotional investment in learning whether or not Scarlett and her loved ones survived their ordeal. I didn’t care if the duplicitous villain they were battling would get their just deserts. None of it mattered, and for all the slit throats, close calls, electric shocks, and broken bones, Marshall’s latest fires too many blanks to be of any consequence.
Film Rating: 2 (out of 4)
