Hooked to the Silver Screen I 18 I B.U.S.T.E.D. aka Everybody Loves Sunshine (1999)

What do I say about this obscure movie? Confounding? Frustrating? Disappointing? Noble failure? None of those seem quite right, but you get the idea I didn’t fall in love with it.

I guess I’ll start with the plot: two British gangsters– street thugs, really– get out of jail at the same time. Terry, played by Goldie, and Ray, played by Andrew Goth (who wrote and directed the movie) are cousins and best friends. Both changed in prison. Ray wants to go straight but Terry became more or less psychotic. Terry not only doesn’t want Ray to leave the gangster lifestyle but becomes extremely jealous when Ray gets a girlfriend and sets in motion an elaborate plot to win back Ray’s affections. There’s a very slight hint that Terry wants more from Ray than comradery, but that’s not a main plot point. All this takes place against the backdrop of a brewing gang war. Terry’s short-sighted and violent inclinations are only serving to fan those flames. Meanwhile, other characters are basically trying to live their lives, including a group of friends of both Terry and Ray who sing and dance at a club owned by Terry.

So that’s the plot. To the extent I was able to follow. I had some trouble though, because the actors largely speak in a cockney style that I often found to be unintelligible. I’m sure I missed a lot. On top of that, the cinematography was noticeably dull, and cinematography is usually something I don’t really notice in a movie. Worse still…I found the whole thing to be boring. There weren’t a lot of surprises in the movie. Once Ray gets a girlfriend, everything that followed was pretty predictable. And… that’s about it. I felt a certain degree of sympathy for Goth– he did a good job acting, and as both writer and director he obviously put his heart into the effort. It’s not embarrassingly bad, but I just wasn’t absorbed by the story. The whole thing had a bleak feeling about it, and I could imagine the bleakness being used to some larger effect but, no, not really here. It just felt bleak, and… overcast.

Overcast. That brings me to the movie’s title. Or, more accurately, titles. This one has two titles, neither of which makes sense. I supposed Everybody Loves Sunshine makes more sense, since it seems the characters live in a world totally devoid of sunshine. They are either indoors, often in a dark club, our outside under grey skies. I would have liked to have seen some sunshine in this movie. There might have been a song by that name in the soundtrack, which, if so, might account for that version of the movie’s title, but really, the movie has nothing really to do with sunshine or how much everyone loves it. B.U.S.T.E.D. makes even less sense. The periods are suggestive of an acronym, but what do the letters stand for? If there’s an answer, it’s not in the movie itself. Also, the movie opens with Ray and Terry getting out of prison, and they don’t get arrested again in the movie, so nobody is actually busted. So that’s a mystery.

And oh yeah…there’s David Bowie.

Good use of Bowie?
That’s easy– no. this was not a good use of Bowie. Bowie plays an older gangster named Bernie. He pops in and out so that it seems like he’s getting more screen time than he actually is. That’s OK, but exactly what purpose the character serves in moving the plot along is yet another mystery. I’ve read summaries of the movie that suggest that Bowie’s character was trying to keep the peace between Ray and Terry, but I didn’t see that. Bernie, it seems, was running the gang while Terry was gone. I continued to think that he was the senior gangster until midway through the story, when it seemed like Bernie was more of a subordinate to Terry. Bernie’s one key moment comes at the end, when he leaves a voicemail for Ray. On the off chance that you track down this movie and want to watch it, I’m not going to write here what Bernie said on the voicemail. I will say that there’s nothing about the character or the rest of the movie that made it important for Bernie to be the one to convey what he does to Ray. Overall, I got the sense that Goth, or Goldie or someone associated with the movie managed to snag Bowie to play a part and just made-up stuff for him to do here and there. His presence is benign enough, but it doesn’t rescue the film. Plus, in a movie with scenes that involve characters singing and dancing, neither Bowie nor Goldie are used for that purpose, so that was a bit of a waste.

And who is Goldie? He is a music producer, actor, DJ and musician. He’s very recognizable in part due to his gold teeth. I’d previously seen him in the James Bond movie, The World is Not Enough. He seems like a talented guy, but those talents don’t get a workout here. Too bad.

Rating
This is not the worst movie Bowie’s ever been in, but I’m not recommending it. I’m giving it two out of four Bowies, and I’m barely giving it two.
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And to see where it fits in the ranking summary, click here.