Danny Boyle directs Ewan McGregor, Cameron Diaz and Holly Hunter in this fantasy romance crime comedy where two angels must make an accidental kidnapper and a ruthless CEO’s daughter fall in love.

Like Oasis’ third album or Caffrey’s Irish Ale here is something I loved as a teenager that the adult world mocked… and as an adult now…. I can kinda see their point. So much looser than Shallow Grave and so much more wishy washy than Trainspotting it’s kinda obvious why ALLO was considered a stumble for Boyle. He gets a little too seduced by the great American setting and Hollywood stars. Doing nothing particularly interesting with any of these strength but ape the Coen Brothers. Yet the Coens are deceptively precise and technically honed. Boyle’s cinema works best as colour blast emotional journeys. Sensational montages. A rush of feelings rather than a procession of targeted tricks. So he’s lost outside his wheelhouse… a jumble of Cinema du Look scenes drowning in a moribund plot and thin concept. McGregor hasn’t yet found his star power. What felt scrappy and cocky in Scotland feels half hearted and overwhelmed in the badlands. Cameron Diaz shines though, pulling their scenes together into some sort of shape just through her sheer glamour. Holly Hunter equally manages to convert something that is quite trite on paper into a far more eye catching turn. I’ll admit now A Life Less Ordinary ain’t a great film but the soundtrack is full of forgotten bangers and the Britpop-py energy it has to it means you are never bored even when you really, really should be. Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

7

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We also do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/