Sex Lives of the Potato Men Movie Review:


Despite one of the best titles of the year, writer-director Humphries' attempt to revive the Confessions genre of 1970s sex romps is a complete disaster. Mostly because this film is neither sexy nor funny. It centres on the antics of four brainless guys who deliver potatoes to Birmingham chip shops: Dave (Vegas) is in the process of splitting up with his wife (Simpson) and looking forward to some wild sex for a change. Ferris (Crook) seems to sleep with every woman he meets, including his landlady (Robbins), who's also his former mother-in-law. Jeremy (Gatiss) is still obsessed with the girl (Lucy Davis) who dumped him, to the point of kidnapping her dog. And Tolly (Coleman) has been left with some very strange obsessions after his wife left him, so turns to a chatline for help.

The title basically describes the film exactly. And before the titles are finished we've already been greeted with "hilarious" references to carrots, melons, gherkins, hot dogs and squirting ketchup. Reviving this genre isn't a bad idea, but these films aren't as easy to make as they appear. So while there are a few funny lines of dialog and a tiny whiff of charm in the cast, this is like a bad sitcom stretched on and on as it stumbles through each tasteless scene, literally scraping the barrel for laughs that never come. And despite a continuous stream of sex talk and sex scenes of every style imaginable, the film isn't remotely sexy. It has that oddly British ability to be rampant and overwhelmingly timid at the same time--every bed scene is played as slapstick, usually of the gross-out variety. It couldn't be any more joyless really. The cast don't seem to understand that the film is a stinker, so they play their moronic characters fairly straight, almost pausing for the laughter as if it's a sketch show. But it's just an inept, mean-spirited movie (it's cruel to men and women in equal measure). And when it finally ends, after the longest 83 minutes of your life, you'll feel like you need a bath.

Rich Cline

Ferris’s (Cook) wife has left him and he is living rent-free with his mother-in-law. The only problem is that she expects some favours for the favour. Dave (Vegas) has been thrown out by his wife but is about to discover that threesomes are not everything he imagined. Tolly (Coleman) has become obsessed with fish and strawberry jam sandwiches as they remind of his wife. Jeremy (Gatiss) is having trouble coming to terms with Ruth (Lucy Davis) wanting to have nothing to do with. Your sex life is never easy when you’re a potato man.

Gathering together a top notch cast of British sitcom and stand-up talent and getting them to star in an old-fashioned sex comedy might have sounded good on paper but the result is abysmal.

Writer/Director Andy Humphries admitted to making a film that would be a cross between the naughtiest Carry On’s and the Confessions of a… movies of the 70s but all he has managed to create is a complete mess of a movie filled with puerile gags and foul language. This is comedy for the lowest common denominator that scrapes the bottom of the barrel and comes up smelling of excrement.

You have to ask yourself why accomplished British comedic talent is in this movie. Johnny Vegas’s character has most of the potentially funny situations but the script is overly indulgent and repetitive, making the jokes wear very thin. Mackenzie Cook will want to remove this from his growing résumé if he wants to keep his burgeoning Hollywood career on track. League of Gentlemen star Mark Gatiss has the most interesting character of the bunch but the comic possibilities of his situation is never fulfilled to its full potential due to the lacklustre script. Dominic Coleman’s Tolly is more like a self-gratification obsessed adolescent that more likely belongs in a US Teen gross-out movie than a British comedy.

This is the movie’s main problem with the film; it doesn’t know what it wants to be and covers up these inadequacies with excessive vulgarity. It is a gross out comedy? No because there isn’t enough to shock. It is it a sex comedy? No because there maybe sex in it but it is only descriptive or off camera and nobody even gets naked in it. Is it a new Carry On? Definitely not as it doesn’t have enough innuendo or cheek. So what is it then?

Sex Lives of the Potato Men looks more like a failed TV pilot than a feature film. The story is not very evident and feels more like a number of comedy skits but together with some slight filling in between. In fact the movie just ends without any real conclusions but at just eighty-three minutes you’ll be glad of this anyway. In the end the film is just a complete waste of the comedic talent of the cast and it drags the UK film industry down a couple of pegs as we struggle to comprehend how a movie like this got financed in the first place.

Star Rating = *

Jamie Kelwick

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