Dirty Pretty Things [DVD]

I'm a big fan of Audrey Tautou and I've never regretted watching any of her movies. Although she shared the story of Dirty Pretty Things equally with the character played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, she did an excellent job of playing a Muslim immigrant living in England.It's sad to say that although the West symbolizes a better life for people from other countries, it is not always easy to be an immigrant, much less for illegals. In this movie, Audrey plays Senay, a Turkish immigrant who for reasons I didn't quite get was not allowed to work. When I was a legal resident alien of the USA decades ago, I wasn't allowed to work either so it may be the same thing. Anyway, Okwe, played by Chiwetel, is a Nigerian doctor who fled his country because he was accused of killing his wife. He works as a taxi driver by day and hotel clerk at night. He and Senay work in the same hotel and Senay sub-lets her apartment to him.They are constantly harassed by authorities and what made matters worse is Okwe's discovery of a black market operation dealing with body organs taken mostly from illegal aliens, happening right there in the hotel. As she and Senay navigate the difficulties of their daily lives, they end up trying to save each other.It was a very good movie and there was a clever twist near the end that had me rooting for the two of them.

The kind and overworked Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is an illegal immigrant from Nigeria that lives and works in London where he has several connections through his different occupations. Okwe, once a medical doctor, works now as cab driver in the daylight and at night as portiere, and in between shifts he visits his friend Guo Yi (Benedict Wong) at the morgue with whom he is playing chess in his short leisure time. The few hours of sleep that Okwe gets is when he rests in Senay's (Audrey Tautou), a Turkish asylum seeking woman, apartment while Senay is at work. Both Senay and Okwe work at the Baltic Hotel in London, and in one of the rooms of the hotel Okwe makes a macabre discovery as he finds a human heart in a clogged toilet. The complexity of Okwe's situation makes it impossible for him to go to the police, but his conscious tells him to be honorable. However, Okwe has more problems with the immigration police and his past as he attempts to balance the issues at hand, which brings him more trouble. Dirty Little Things is a good story that balances societal issues with a ghastly crime in an environment where laws cannot be applied. Thus, Frears creates a sublime thriller that will provide food for thought as well as suspense.

The topic was a surprise and hard to accept. But the movie handled it in a masterful way. A mixture of suspense action/adventure and a sprinkle of romance. The movie "unfolds" revealing a message about racial inequality, financial disparity and universal humanity wrapped up in a highly entertaining movie! Thumbs up! 👍🏾

This is an example of a very good movie that was not promoted properly. This look at the underbelly of modern London is fascinating. In "Dirty Pretty Things" the viewer is taken beneath the usual staid and proper face of the city to its dirty tenements and nasty underworld. And we're not invited into a lower-class colorful Cockney world.Instead, we are shown into a world teeming with immigrants, legal and illegal, from all over the world, trying to survive in a brutal world without mercy for the defenseless. It is a world filled with sweatshops you would expect to see in a third world country, prostitutes, and predators of every stripe.The legal immigrant is Senay, a Turkish Muslim played by the lovely Audrey Tautou. She displays the wide range of her acting talent in a role quite different fron the whimsical pixie she portayed in "Amelie". She is a housekeeper in the aptly named Baltic Hotel.Her counterpart is Okwe, an illegal immigrant from Nigeria, a former doctor who is now a taxi driver and night desk clerk at the same hotel where Senay works and is allowed to sleep on her couch when she is not there. I don't know where they found Chitwetel Ejiofor, but he has star potential. He actually steals this movie in my opinion, even with an outstanding performance by Tautou.The two of them are thrown together by happenstance. Each is preyed upon by the type of vultures that haunt a large city's underbelly. Senay is sexually exploited by a sweatshop owner. Okwe is exploited by Sneaky Juan the kind of underworld denizen always working an angle at some vulnerable immigrant's expense. He co-opts Okwe into using his medical skill for an outrageously immoral scheme in exchange for fake passports for Okwe and Senay. After their experience in the London underworld these two immigrants want to emigrate.The satisfying irony of how Okwe obtains the passports from Sneaky Juan, and then turns the tables on him, is worth the price of admission itself. It involves a very clever plot twist. The movie has a bittersweet ending but that is hardly a negative for this gem. Very nicely done and well worth seeing. With wider distribution this could have been a foreign film winner.

There was nothing pretty in the entire movie save the pretty red uniforms of the bellboys in the Baltic hotel. No, the entire movie was dark, but still peppered with enough suspense to sustain interest. Even Audrey Tautou dressed down and acted out the ill-dressed and poorly mannered immigrant to an annoying extreme. Her Nigerian exile friend Okwe is by far the main character but his muddled past serves to muddle his present course of action as well. The plot is more an expose of the horrors endured by the immigrant community even in a city otherwise posh as London. All the main characters are immigrants and there is the suggestion of the same in the two main villains. The movie is sure to make you ponder the value of your own citizenship in a world of greed and lost souls.

È tanto che volevo rivedere questo film. Dato il buon prezzo ho deciso di acquistarlo. Arrivato anche in anticipo ! Tutto perfetto.

Sie werden ausgebeutet, missbraucht und gejagt. Ihnen droht permanent die Abschiebung. Zu welchen Mitteln und Tricks die illegalen Einwanderer aus aller Herren Länder greifen müssen, um davonzukommen, zeigt dieser Film. Okwe stammt aus Afrika, Senay aus der Türkei. Sie verlieben sich ineinander, aber die komplizierten Verhältnisse, die sie auch oft zu Wohnungswechseln zwingen, verhindern, dass sie Zeit und Gelegenheit für ihre Liebe finden. Dann geraten sie aus purer Not an einen Verbrecher, der Abhängigen mit illegalen Operationen Organe raubt und diese teuer verkauft. Wie Okwe Senay vor diesem Schicksal rettet, wird hier nicht verraten, aber ich war von seiner Lösung hell begeistert. Endlich bekommen alle, was sie verdienen. Audrey Tautou ist der Lichtblick dieser Geschichte und ihre intensiven, braunen Augen dürften wohl jeden Mann einfangen. Aber auch Sophie Okonedo sollte erwähnt werden, deren dunkle Schönheit mich entzückt. Ein unterhaltsamer Film mit einer sozialen Botschaft.

very good movie make people open thier eyes about immigration problem and the misirabal life of these illigal immigrants, very well done.

2002年BBC制作のイギリス映画。人間が動物以下・モノ以下に扱われる現実が、現代の先進国の中にあるということを、まず再認識させられます。オドレイ目当てで観始めたものの、冒頭から主役のオクウェから目が離せなくなります。てっきり原作のあるものだと思いました。2002年に先見の明があったというべきか、当時だから作れた映画だというべきか。15年経った2017年、制作国のイギリスのEU離脱という歴史的な出来事も経て、状況は些かならず変わっています。今観ても古臭く感じられないことに、素晴らしい映画を経験できたことを喜べるのと同時に、難民・移民問題がより深刻になっていることを実感し、複雑な気持ちになります。そんな重いテーマ、猟奇的な事件、鬼畜な扱いなどを、それらに走らずに、コメディタッチな軽妙なムードさえ感じさせ、冗長なエピソードも殆どなく、悲しい結末をさらっと描き切るのは、ヨーロッパ映画ならではものではないでしょうか。この映画をジャン=ピエール・ジュネやミシェル・ゴンドリーが撮っていたらどうだろうか？テレビ放送局ではなく映画制作会社が作っていたらどうなっただろうか？などとも考えました。それらはそれらで観たいとも思いますが、この作品は映像的趣向に傾かないところが素晴らしいのだと思います。テレビ映画的なところが奏功しているのかもしれません。オドレイ・トトゥをトルコ人不法移民役にキャスティングしたことは思い切っていて、『アメリ』翌年の彼女のネームバリューを利用した映画だろうという拙速な観測が裏切られます。彼女ならではの不思議な感じが、中近東人役を違和感ないものにし、悲壮感を排した作品の主旨に沿っている存在になっています。また、トルコ人訛りの英語を訓練したとのことですが、オドレイ独特の口調やフランス人が無理して出したHの発音など、可愛らしい面もあります。リージョン1とのことでしたが、EU圏向けのリージョン２でした。聴覚障害者向けの字幕もあり、英語版でも観やすい映画です。

In terms of culture this film shows us brits a truly different story of immigrants and multi ethnic communities, whether you agree or disagree with the country's policies on immigration, I think you will be hard pushed not to feel compassion and sympathy for these characters. Having said that I must stress this film is not about doom and gloom, it keeps a good deal of humour throughout, but it has a strong undercurrent, and a plot which I found original and not easily predicted. The acting is fantastic, the only actor I knew of before being Audrey Tautou of Amelie fame, which just shows her versatility, as this role is a far cry from the lovable french girl, she plays a Turkish refugee trying to survive in London, paying rent and food bills and not being allowed to legally work. The lead role being played by Chiwetel Ejiofor is equally convincing, his charater is lighter and more comedic which brings the whole film a watchable yet intense quality. This film has to be one of the must see films of the year, do yourself a favour, drop the holywood blockbusters for this week, you won't be sorry.