Picture yourself trapped in an office for 89 minutes. It might seem doable, but then have yourself as the fly-on-the-wall watching a raging alcoholic scream and swear over the phone non-stop. That is the most concise summary you could give of the latest Danny Dyer film, One Last Deal. And picture this, he has to make one last deal.
Jimmy Banks (Dyer) is an old-school football agent who has been out of the game for quite a while. With past problems, he currently only has one client. Matt Gravish (Elliott Rogers) was once a star player, until some bad decisions were also made. Banks is desperate to get him back on the field with the biggest pay he can before it is too late. As the phone calls continue, and the deals become dirtier, Banks’ life, reputation, and his client’s reputation as well are all heading towards collapse.
Any piece of cinema that is forced to one location can be a struggle. That is simply one of the challenges One Last Deal faces. For the British audience, they are used to seeing Dyer’s words fill their screen with nuisance. Yet those loyal to the actor continue to come back for more. For some, this genre of cinema may be amusing. But for others, it provides nothing by the end. That being said, with Irish director Brendan Muldowney’s film, this London office football drama might just be too dramatic to handle.
In another failed attempt to create a one-room piece for cinema, One Last Deal does not deliver a high enough form of entertainment to keep audiences hooked, even for the 89-minute runtime. The film is all too predictable. As soon as the pieces are presented to the viewer, they are easily put together. It is a story formed through various phone calls, each guided with shots of a Bluetooth headset or speaker phone. We are only privy to Banks’ perspective and are constantly witnessing his downward spiral.
For the Dyer fan, they might all be excited to get to see his charm at play. But when it is taken back from the poor production quality, there is little to enjoy. While composer Stephen McKeon’s jazzy score might help elevate certain moments, it becomes difficult to continue. One can only show so many different angles of the same office before it becomes over-repetitive, and that is simply what happens here.
Adding to the poor quality, the baseline of the misdeeds of Banks’ star athlete makes it all the more repulsive to the female audience. To try to protect someone who has done something like that and still wants them out there living their life truly feels disgusting. To centre the plot around one foul human makes it even harder to bear. Adding to this is the fact that these two men believe they have done nothing wrong. Yet for Banks, it takes more than just him being called a “loud-mouth bully who nobody likes” to change his perspective.
By the time we get to it, it feels like years of your life have been taken away. You cannot allow for the end to try and make up for the rest of the travesty that was the 80-minutes the viewer witnessed. Yet, One Last Deal tries to fix everything that went wrong throughout the last 10-minutes. A sad excuse to have Danny Dyer in one room for an entire film. All hope is lost by the end, and yet you still sat through the whole thing. Dyer fans will sit through the whole thing, and who is to say whether or not they will regret their choices?
It is entirely up to the individual whether or not they take themselves to watch it. For a fan of the actor, it can make sense that they would go. But for those unaware of him, perhaps it’s best not to spend an hour and a half of your life in the cinema on this occasion.
★
In UK cinemas from March 13th / Danny Dyer, Elliott Rogers, Carlos Bardem, Katy Cavanagh, Dagmar Döring / Dir: Brendan Muldowney / Vertifgo Releasing / 18
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