Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4190 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-05-04
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: German, Dutch
• Dubbed in: German
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
No-one will be neutral about Plunkett and Macleane. Either you go with its notion of cheeky, stylish fun or you want to grab first-time director Jake Scott by the ear and slap him silly. Your inclination may depend on whether you recall his dad Ridley's own directing debut, The Duellists (1977), and savour the correspondences. Dad took a Joseph Conrad tale of the Napoleonic Wars, cast it with the ultra-contemporary Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel, and filmed it with a swooping, mobile camera. Son Jake has made a feisty period piece about a pair of thieves (Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller) in 1748 London and filled it with blatant anachronisms. A decadent aristo (Alan Cumming), asked whether he "still swings both ways," replies, "I swing every way!" A ballroom full of revellers dances the minuet (or is it the gavotte?) while our ears--if not theirs--are filled with a trance ballad. And so forth.

Is this sophomoric? Maybe. But it's also often fresh and inventive. Why shouldn't a filmmaker be allowed to speak directly to a contemporary consciousness, even flaunt it, as long as he also delivers startling imagery and convincing period detail? The solid cast includes Michael Gambon as a corrupt magistrate, Ken Stott as a very nasty enforcer named Mr Chance (who favours a thumb through the eye socket and into the brain as a mode of execution) and Terence Rigby as a philosophical jailer. Even Liv Tyler looks more interesting than usual. In the end pretty frivolous, Plunkett and Macleane is nonetheless a lively debut. --Richard T Jameson, Amazon.com

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
Will Plunkett (Carlyle) is a common thief who teams up with aristocrat James Macleane to rob from the rich, using their combined social connections and criminal knowhow to become "The Gentlemen Highwaymen". But when Macleane falls in love with the daughter of one of their wealthy victims, things get complicated. A stylish, fast-paced, techno-scored adventure. Director Scott is the son of BLADE RUNNER director Ridley Scott.

Customer Reviews

Good fun
Don't take this film seriously or you will be disappointed. I thoroughtly enjoyed it. This film is pure entertainment and has a surprising but excellent soundtrack that really polishes the film off. The extras on the DVD are okay with the trailer and some good cast interviews. The behind the scene filming is just that, a film about the filming but without any commentary and is not worth watching. However you can change the filming angle in some scene, although you will have to play and work out how to do it on your DVD.

Definitely worth seeing for lots of reasons
The actors in this film are wonderfully well chosen.Jonny Lee Miller is a sex-god, that's my first reason! Robert Carlyle is a first-class actor and together, they make an unlikely but compelling pair. Alan Cumming is superb as always in his role as Rochester - very sexually charged! The costumes are stunning, and I adored the music and have even bought the CD. This is worth it alone for the music to my favourite scene in the film, the ball. This is utterly engaging and the music throbs in a very suggestive way! Brilliant stuff... I liked the script which was not overly olde worlde and very funny in places. The storyline is not overly original (but what is, these days?) but I thought it was very well portrayed. Dashing highwaymen (especially a gentleman!) should always be a big hit. Oh, and George Dawes is in it, too! A very watchable film which is compelling in places.

This movie stands, and delivers...
Like a bright button on a dandy’s waistcoat, this film is real gem! Made with very 21st century sensibilities (and soundtrack) it is a true Restoration Period romp, and is like Hogarth’s paintings of the ‘Rakes Progress’ and ‘Gin Alley’ brought to vivid life on DVD. It’s a bawdy, squalid but glamorous world where the ‘respectable’ rich get their vicarious kicks from partying with villains and rubbing shoulders with roughtrade (not really so very different from nowadays - just ask Guy Ritchie and all those ‘Lock Stock’ wannabees, or take a look around any trendy West-end club!).

Stylised it might be, but the film evokes its 18th century period so well – this was a time when a member of the royal family was mugged in his sedan chair in Covent Garden, children were hanged for pinching a loaf of bread, and when the real highwayman Dick Turpin rode Black Bess into legend. That said, the story unfolds with a very ‘olde Englishe’ spin on all the elements and themes you’d expect to find in a classic Sergio Leone spaghetti western: two ‘heroes’ thrown into an unlikely and uneasy partnership, bound by thieves’ honour and greed; a beautiful girl; corrupt and avaricious officials; a psychopathic villain, suitably dressed in black; and the prospect of the last man standing getting the gold and the girl. The whole set-up and especially the finale at Tyburn gibbet is certainly a nod (whether conscious or not) to Leone’s ‘Good, the Bad & the Ugly’ – and I say this as a compliment, not a criticism.

All in all, a great romp, great entertainment and great fun. Pay your money and take the ride, enjoy this ripping yarn for what it is, and don’t take it too seriously!!! I would almost have given it full marks, but some roguish felon in the ‘Plunkett & Macleane’ film tie-in & merchandising department decided to omit the Tiger Lillies brilliant songs from the soundtrack CD – and that, my good man, is a hangin’ offence, to be sure!