El rey del erotismo

Michael Winterbottom is reunited with Steve Coogan in this watchable tale of one time richest man in Britain, porn and property entrepreneur Paul Raymond. Winterbottom elects to tell the story through the eyes of Raymond as he watches a video tape of a documentary he made with his daughter.

Coogan puts in a well rounded performance playing Raymond (it would have been easy to make the character either too likable, too bolshy or too obnoxious, credit to Coogan for getting the balance just right) from his early days when he first opened a members only strip club in SoHo to his later years after the death of his daughter Debbie - Imogen Poots. Raymond dotes on her and its their relationship which is central to the storytelling. He is portrayed as more or less disowning his other children; an uncomfortable scene to view is the visit and dinner he shares with his son from an early relationship. Anna Friel is superb as his first wife and mother of their three children Jean, who tolerates Raymond's countless affairs/one night stands. He explains at one point that its only natural for him to be having sex with all the beautiful women who work for him, else what sort of a man would he be. To throw a spanner in the works along comes Amber -Tamsin Egerton with whom Raymond falls in love with and leaves Jean for after she auditions for him. We follow Raymond and Amber as their relationship develops, no need this time for illicit liaisons for Raymond as Amber is partial to a bit of three in a bed. At this time Raymond takes the advice of and employs Tony Power to launch the naughty magazine (and extremely lucrative) side of his business. Power a playboy type coke addict is played; in a great piece of casting by stand up comic and panel show regular Chris Addison. Look out for bit parts from other Brit comedy stars including David Williams as a vicar.

This is a well scripted, acted and directed film as you'd expect from Winterbottom, which left me wanting to know more about Raymond. It moves along at a good pace and manages to offer both light and shade within the plot, as well as evoking the various decades featured with fine detail. Well worth the entry fee and bus fare.

I didn't know what to expect from The Look of Love. I like Steve Coogan so gave it a shot. In my opinion it's well worth a watch.

The film is a biopic about Paul Raymond played fantastically by Steve Coogan. For those unfamiliar, like I was before seeing TLOL, Paul Raymond was an entrepreneur who owned a lot of property and strip clubs in London and was at one point Britain's richest man. It's amazing how such a rich guy can go so unheard of, with people my age anyway, yet have such a big empire in London just years ago. S'pose they're not going to teach you about the strip clubs and nudey plays in second year history at school. It made for some really interesting watching.

And not because of the more or less constant boobs in case that's where your mind immediately went there. There is admittedly more graphic nudity in this film than I've ever seen in a film ever but because there is so much of it you kind of get used to it. The novelty of 'tee hee, boobies' fades away pretty quick to make way for a pretty fascinating life story.

My journalism lecturer always said there's nothing more interesting than writing about a famous person 'on the slide' out of fame and power and there's certainly a lot of 'sliding'here. He lives such an extravagant lifestyle with the drugs and ever changing woman you know it'll all catch up with him some day. The whole second half that looks at the unusual relationship between him and his spoilt daughter is pretty captivating. To give you a taste of what their relationship is like, there's a scene where Paul catches his daughter snorting coke. Instead of telling her off and getting angry he insists she mustn't just buy her drugs off the street and to only do the very best. It's a look into a life of excess and irresponsibility which makes for an intriguing watch.

There are a lot of British actors , mostly comedians, in the film.There's actually so many big British names it's almost distracting. There's Coogan obviously who naturally steals the show. But then there's cameos from Stephen Fry, Simon Bird, David Walliams, Matt Lucas, Dara O'Briain - the list goes on. All do a good job, even if some are only in it for a matter of seconds, but celebrities like Dara O'Briain don't really come across as fully fledged characters. It just takes you out the film for a few seconds and makes your brain announce 'oh look, it's him from Mock The Week'.

I don't like to talk about cinematography too much as I'm a complete novice but I could tell it's good here. Parts where they talk about Paul Raymond's men-only magazine feel like you're actually flicking through a 70s style dirty mag. The fashion of the time is very prominent with bright zig-zagging colours in his clubs and houses sucking you into the era nicely.

It might not be for everyone is a possible problem- 3 people walked out of our screen halfway through due to what I assume was it's increasing amount of graphic porn scenes. Similarly big action, life changing drama fans may feel a little underwhelmed. If you show a bit of interest and follow the relationship between Raymond and his daughter however you'll find this film to be a surprising little gem.

Another reviewer stated, that this is not as engaging as other Steve Coogan and Winterbottom collaborations. I won't comment on that, but try not to think in those categories if you can, because your movie viewing experience will suffer. You shouldn't compare previous works with the newer ones. In this case, Steve Coogan makes an otherwise not very likable character at least interesting. And that is sufficient enough to carry the movie through.

At least in my book. Steve Coogan had obviously fun playing this character and it is showing on the screen. Of course there are some usual clichés you get thrown at you, but it's almost impossible making a movie of this size, that is at least a bit commercial, without stepping into them. If you don't mind too much, you will get an entertaining enough movie to pass the time.

If the real "Paul Raymond" was half as charming as Steve Coogan in this, than you understand his charm. You also should be aware, that there is a lot of nudity (not really a big surprise considering the theme of the movie).

Finally caught up with this film and felt that it began very strongly, beautifully evoking those early Paul Raymond days as he dragged Soho and indeed Britain out of the drab post war 50s and into what would become known as the 'swing sixties'. Steve Coogan is excellent but after abut twenty or thirty minutes and we have seen the early shows recreated and the neon light red light district come alive we are drawn further into the private life of the man. This is interesting enough, at first, but the real story here is what Raymond did in terms of liberating us inhibited Brits and in building his property and sex empire. In the end this degenerates into simply one more line of coke. We are also asked to become involved in the tragedy of the life of his daughter but we don't care. The weak script has not allowed for the necessary empathy to develop and we are left to watch despairingly as all comes depressingly undone.

3 of my favourite films have been directed by Michael Winterbottom and starred Steve Coogan. A Cock And Bull Story, 24 Hour Party People and The Trip (in the UK we were lucky enough to see the full TV series, but the movie version was great as well).

This isn't as good, but still entertaining. When I was pubescent, Paul Raymond's Men Only magazine was a must-read if you could get an adult to buy it for you, and Fiona Richmond was someone you thought you might just have a chance with if you got to meet her. In short, this film meant a lot to me.

My problem with this is that it's all far too glossy. Soho in the 60/70/80's and there isn't a villain in sight and everything going on is fairly innocuous? And I really liked Paul Raymond, but to survive in that environment there must have been more to him.

Anyway, an enjoyable film overall. And I went away with that final close-up on Imogen Poots as Debbie singing the title song almost breaking my heart.