Dirty Little Trick (2011)

Directed by: Brian Skiba | 85 minutes | thriller, crime | Actors: Dean Cain, Christie Burson, Michael Madsen, Alexandria Ballesteros, Ceri Bethan, Nicola Victoria Buck, Jessica Duffy

‘Dirty Little Trick’ is a bad dime-a-dozen action movie with cardboard characters, predictable events and an uninteresting story. To make matters worse, the film has an unexpected ending, which is very out of tune with the rest, but not in a good way. More of a failed attempt to still stand out, although most viewers will no longer be interested in how the characters end.

The film is based on an improbable and thin plot around the icy and calculating Sarah (Christie Burson), who also calls herself Britney. In search of quick money, she takes in unsuspecting but shady men, with whom it usually does not end well. Fortunately, she can easily pick out a potential victim in a crowded bar, when—in a scene so amateurishly written to cry—mafia errand boy Danny (Joe Jones) loudly announces that he has money from dubious sources. Problem is, the money in question belongs to mob boss Vito (Michael Madsen). Sarah/Britney’s plan is to trick Danny into stealing all the money and fleeing with her. Bank employee Peter (Dean Matthew Ronalds) is also called in, in a transparent double play.

Attempting to play with the chronology in Tarantino-esque fashion (with emphasis on attempts), Sarah is introduced at the beginning of the film as she stands by the side of the elevators and Michael (Dean Cain) happens to drive by, her pick it up, take it to his house and go to bed with her. It’s one of those events that only happens in movies. It gets worse when the crazy story is also accompanied by the acting of Jones, who would still be rejected for the 8th grade school drama and finds in Ronalds the most implausible bank employee of all time.

It’s a shame for Burson, who doesn’t even act so well and portrays the long-haired brunette Sarah as a completely different character from the short black wig and heavy make-up, that she ended up in such a third-rate production. She is the only bright spot in an otherwise really bad movie.

“I was once Superman on TV, now I have to earn my money with this,” that is the facial expression with which Dean Cain constantly appears. And not in an acute ‘where has my career gone’ panic, but more with a resignation that borders on indifference. No matter what happens in his life, whether he’s being wooed by an attractive hitchhiker or threatened by a mob boss, the same facial expression still applies to Dean. His character Michael is a film editor, who has certainly never worked on a film in which a femme fatale appears. Unsuspectingly, he falls into one pitfall into another, without literally flinching. Even when his sister is held hostage for information, Cain can hardly bring himself to put any realistic emotion into his portrayal, when it should be a tense and intense scene.

The same problem Cain has also applies to Michael Madsen, but he has pretty much built his entire career with one “tough guy” attitude with the accompanying frowning. That’s not to say Madsen can’t act, quite the contrary. It’s just a shame that in movies like this he puts down a meager (and shameless) copy of his much better roles.

For example, ‘Dirty Little Trick’ bumps from scene to scene (which certainly don’t excel at brilliant editing), we also see Danny and later Peter fall head over heels for Sarah/Britney’s charms – so much so that you start to question their mentality. abilities – and an intrigue is laboriously set in motion. Then in the last five minutes there is suddenly a plot twist and denouement that you probably won’t see coming, but only lowers the level further. So avoid this ‘Dirty Little Trick’.