The Number One Girl

Amateurish at best but boring at worst, "The Number One Girl" gives even pedestrian R-rated potboilers a bad name. Resist the urge to watch this direct-to-video tripe about a green-eyed gangster, a gorgeous gal, and cretinous action hero. Okay, I realize that Vinnie Jones of "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" endows this movie with some marginal marquee value, and I bought this DVD at a Movie Gallery clearance sale based on Jones and the "Karate Kid" star Pat Morita. The DVD box cover with a sartorially suited Jones holding two automatic pistols in a signature John Woo stance also lured me into shelling out my shekels this execrable epic. Moreover, clocking in at 85 minutes, I thought it would be a blast. Wrong on all counts! "The Number One Girl" makes "The Condemned" look like Oscar winning material. The star—real-life martial arts competitor Tony Schiena of "Wake of Death"—makes Casper Van Dien look like Sir Laurence Olivier. Mind you, Lisa McAllister is a babe, but she is not enough to make this melodramatic muck memorable. Production Manager turned director; Luc Campeau makes a pathetic directorial debut. Granted, "The Defender" scenarist Douglas W. Miller had a modicum of a good idea, but Campeau does nothing invigorating with it. The first big action scene in the beginning has no voltage—even though it's a movie-within-a-movie—and later scenes, particularly the multiple fights in the last quarter-hour are comatose. Incidentally, in the foreshadowing department, one of the characters uses the familiar "Star Wars'" line: 'I got a bad feeling about this." Gee, were they right! Vinnie, making crap like this is going to ruin your credibility. In fact, the less said about this forgettable film, the better. Peruse the other reviews for more details about this drivel, but don't rent, buy, or watch this wretched rubbish. Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!

Just turned up in Melbourne, Australia in December 2007. Never a good sign! Not only straight to video, but late to video.

I've seen Vinnie Jones drag other crappy movies from total crap to watchable crap (say Condemned or Slipstream). A true scenery chewer, one of the best.

But even Jebus himself couldn't have saved this woeful turkey. Started bad, got worse and surprisingly even worse.

I can tolerate the bad acting, the bad script and bad music but the direction was truly pedestrian.

Avoid at all cost, I want by 2 dollars and 2 hours back!

The one star was for Vinnie alone, nothing in this film was worth while. I stupidly bought it because Vinnie Jones is a cool actor, he was brilliant in Lock Stock and has that 'hard man' image down to a tee. I started watching with my mate and you notice the abysmal acting straight away, we thought it might get better but ended up fast forwarding a lot just to get to some action....which was awfully choreographed and poorly acted. Fight to the death!? It's an old cliché, but my grandma could have beaten up tony schiena's character. And what was all the slow-mo scenes about? At least I have a spare DVD case now and, who knows, if I run out of toilet paper I have a back up. If I were Vinnie I would be ashamed that I ever let tony Schiena beat him up...even if it was a movie. (I would have given this a minus number if I could....it's an hour or more of my life I will never get back!)

You can see the appeal when pitched - gangster and Hollywood star fight over beauty pageant favourite - but the execution from dialogue to staging is so horrible as to miss out on any possible positive result. The poor acting of the leads is only emphasised by assigning them long, rambling voiceovers in addition to dialogue, and the approach to the beauty pageant is incredibly 1970's and misogynistic, like a 12-year-old's staging of the whole idea.

Hidden somewhere is a worthy plot about international exploitation - something like "Traffic" - but it's incredibly well concealed. Meanwhile everything looks exactly like the budget available - the beauty pageant is in a London theatre but a really small one, the gangster's supposedly plush house is errrrr... kinda OK but not really spectacular. The music is adequate but doesn't really sound like it was composed for this movie, which must be some kind of problem...

It all feels bizarrely as if no-one involved with the entire process actually had English as their native language, which is ... really weird. The oddest thing is that it doesn't LOOK like one of those Z-list, shot on video, indie exploitation movies you find in Pound shops (though that's where I found it), it's just really, really badly done.

Of all the films we've ever watched this has to be the absolute worst! You wouldn't even wish your worst enemy to watch this! What has Vinnie Jones been done! Surely he can't recover from this pile of poop! Worth a watch just for the fact it's so bad it's hilarious.

Don't even bother! It's worse than the cheesiest film you can ever imagine, times by ten, add a load of people who can't act and then sit on a chair full of razors!

Did someone really pay to budget this film? If so you must be a mug mate!

BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD!