Review of Dirty Pretty Things

Dirty Pretty Things

How would you react if you were a hotel porter and you found a heart clogging a toilet in one of the rooms of the hotel? What if on top of that you were an illegal immigrant afraid of deportation so going to the police is your last option? That’s the idea that gets things going in the thriller Dirty Pretty Things directed by Stephen Frears and written by Steven Knight. What starts off as a thriller becomes a meditation on illegal immigrants in London, and possibly all over the world, and the lengths people are willing to go to be free. Okwe is the hotel porter who happens to find the heart in the bathroom which leads him on a whirlwind journey through the London underworld of organ trading, whose past is never far behind him. For reasons unknown to us till the latter part of the film, Okwe is an illegal immigrant who fled from his home country and is just barely surviving in London working two jobs and living on the couch of Senay who also works in the hotel as a maid. Senay is afraid of anyone finding out that Okwe is living with her because if the immigration police find out she has been working or is harboring another illegal immigrant then she will be deported. However the immigration police do find out that someone might be living with Senay and that she is working at the hotel which forces her to find a job at a sweatshop one of her friends works at. All of this leads up to a thrilling finale that finds each character at a crossroads making them decide whether to go left or go right. Okwe is a virtuous former doctor who find’s himself in a situation that forces him to question his principles and the lines that he thought he would never cross while Senay is the naïve young woman who is forced to see the world as it really is and how being free can mean many different things. Frears and Knight created possibly one the best thrillers I’ve ever seen that never leans more of social commentary or straight thriller but rather finds a middle ground that is hard to come by these days. The acting is solid across the board with each actor doing justice to the complex characters they portray. While the ending may tie up a bit too nicely for my tastes, I still find it believable enough to warrant the final place the characters are left to in the end. So I guess my last question is would you give up a kidney for a new life?

Posted on 12/05/07 by: matt2648 01:14 PM