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One out of Five stars
Running time: 102 mins

Poorly directed, badly written and featuring an atrocious central performance from boxer-turned-actor Gary Stretch, this is unquestionably one of the worst films of the year.

What's it all about?
Written and directed by Marcus Warren, The Heavy stars boxer-turned-actor Gary Stretch as Mitchell 'Boots' Mason (is 'Boots' the right choice for a hard nickname?), who gets out of prison and agrees to do the time-honoured one last job for his shady boss Anawalt (Stephen Rea) in return for something or other. Meanwhile, Mitchell's unscrupulous brother Christian (Adrian Paul), whose testimony sent Mitchell to prison in the first place, is running for Prime Minister and is understandably keen to distance himself from Mitchell's gangster-based shenanigans.

The Bad
You know you're in trouble when Vinnie Jones (as bent copper Dunn who seems somewhat obsessed with Boots) and Sadie Frost (as a chirpy London barmaid) are the best things in your film. That's not to say they're any good, only that they're not as bad as everyone else, particularly Gary Stretch, who displays a startling lack of onscreen charisma and can barely deliver his lines properly.

Sadly, the film's problems don't end with the acting. The script is nonsensical and utterly inept, but thinks it's being really clever – the action is intercut with Boots invading a woman's (Shannyn Sossamon – who knew she needed work this bad?) home and holding her hostage for some gradually revealed reason, all of which leads to a final twist that's so badly staged that it would be laughable if you hadn't lost the will to live by then.

The Worse
On top of that, the dialogue is so stilted and clunky that it's actually painful to listen to and the film doesn't even deliver a decent action scene or shoot-out. It will therefore come as a surprise to no-one that this is receiving one of those promotional theatrical releases before going not-quite-straight to DVD next week.

Worth seeing?
Basically, this is an appalling mess from beginning to end. Avoid like your life depended on it.