Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5490 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-05-02
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: German, 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

Don't Pork the Gentry Mr Highway -Man !!!
Sometimes a bit of hard, dark and amusing period-drama is just what the doctor ordered, taking a break from BBC endless remakes of nicety-nice Jane Austin and Charles Dickens books that we all pay our licence fees for !!!

High-way man Plunkett (Carlyle) teams up with ex-socialite Macleane (Miller) to rob the London gentry of their wears, along the way becoming infamous and inciting the wrath of the local authorities.

I felt that the film was just the right mix of drama and comedy, with serious events separated by moments of shear comic genius. Macleane encouraging Plunkett to eat more prunes and trying to catch a large ruby as it worked its way through his system, along with trying to cure a dose of the clap caught in the line of duty with gun-powder are probably worth watching this movie for on their own.

This movie is quite literally a star studied cast of British talent, with guest appearances by Alan Cummings and Little Britain stars Lucas and Williams - who I really did not remember in this movie when I first saw it. Ken Scott as the vicious - and somewhat sadist and perverted - Thief Taker General Chance was a pure stroke of casting genius.

I saw this film years ago and enjoyed it as much then as I do now, and rate this movie along with `The Escapist' as Miller's best work. The only down side for me was the offspring of Kermit and Miss Piggy appearing to sing some of the soundtrack !! Still, and excellent one hour and thirty-seven minutes of pure escapism ! 4 out of 5, and would have been well worthy of a sequel !

Great fun
And that's how it should be viewed. This is not supposed to be realistic period drama. That's superb too -Kubrick's Barry Lyndon remains the greatest example. What this is is sheer entertainment, a tongue-in-cheek, very stylised film that happens to be set in the 18th century. The ball set to 1990s trance is the bit that probably everyone remembers most for various reasons. Let's not be pretentious though.

The story is hardly Hemmingway, but better than most mainstream releases. The acting is superb, and the whole cast was clearly having a great deal of fun. So they should. Alan Cumming makes an ideal Rochester (author of the most perverted poems of all time), and Liv Tyler is far more than just an attractive object to gaze at. She's good. Very good. Carlyle, Gambon, Stott and Miller are great, and the whole gels into exactly what it sets out to be: an extremely bawdy post-Restoration piece updated for a modern audience. Sarcastic and somewhat perverse humour abounds, most of it unrepeatable here, but hugely entertaining if you leave your pruding hat in the other room.

If you dislike bawdy humour, or are a 'purist' you will hate this film. Fair enough, don't buy it. For the rest -enjoy. A few extras worth a quick glance. Some nice interviews. Great picture on the DVD and the sound is crisp, clean and well balanced. Direction for a debut is very good, with a real flare, and offers something a bit different compared to many releases. Well worth seeking out.

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!