Good People | Film review - Dodgy windfall lands London expats James Franco & Kate Hudson in desperate straits | Movie Talk | What's on TV

(Image credit: Nick Wall)

Struggling to get out of debt in London, expat American couple James Franco and Kate Hudson find an illicit £220,000 stash after their dodgy downstairs tenant turns up dead in Good People. But keeping the windfall lands them in desperate straits when brutal local gangster Sam Spruell and smooth Parisian drug dealer Omar Sy both come looking for the loot.

This low-rent crime thriller’s London setting never feels convincing - despite the presence of Tom Wilkinson’s dogged Met copper – and the film’s action-packed climax, which sees the couple fending off the bad ’uns using power tools, is even more implausible.

Certificate 15. Runtime 88 mins. Director Henrik Ruben Genz

Good People is released in cinemas and on Digital HD on 21st August.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC17twr50WU

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.