Bigga than Ben: A Russians’ Guide to Ripping Off London
S A Halewood / United Kingdom / 2007 / 85 mins

Starring: Ben Barnes, Andrei Chadov, Ovidiu Matesan, Andrew Byron, Jeff Mirza

In 1999 two Russians came to London with a cunning plan to scam their way through the good life in the city. Bigga Than Ben is an adaptation of Sergey Sakin and Pavel Tatersky's cult book of the same name following the pair as they scheme, scam and take as many recreational drugs as available all the while snubbing their nose at British reserve and politeness.

The first half of Halewood's visually striking film is an ode to horrors of moving to London where the standard gags about the price of flats and the cost of living are handled in a fresh and funny way. The pace is enjoyably nippy and the tone sharp until Spiker and Sobacca turn from the "legit" route - cash in hand work and cramped living - to the fully illegal route of more creative and more criminal scams and drug taking that starts to threaten their friendship. The Second half thus becomes an indulgent montage of drug scenes which goes on too long and is both too dark and too unreal to be properly engaging. Whilst the early scams are more Artful Dodger or Chico Marx than The Grifters, these later scenes of addiction and the spiralling condition of the friendship are more Trainspotting than Big Lebowski and it makes for a very uneasy mix. Similarly the friends' racism and complex homoerotic relationships with colleagues and fellow junkies are brushed over.

Despite the uneven tone there is much to praise here: Russian star Andrei Chadov manages to express a genuine unlikability in Spiker whilst keeping him likable enough to understand Sobacca's loyalty and affection. Ben Barnes is a far more sympathetic Sobacca and brings a subtlety to the character that adds interest even when it's at odds with the more scatological jokes and grungy vibe. That sympathy is also part of the film's downfall: the real Spiker and Sobacca reportedly asked Halewood not to make them "too nice" and in doing so there remains a feeling that we are watching two slightly right wing middle class gap year students getting into scrapes whilst trying to find themselves through crack. In ditching the quirky vocabulary, translating the book over from Russian (and the cultural context it sits in) and making a more sympathetic universal pair of protagonists you are left neither charmed nor appalled just a little disappointed, like them, that they could not have made more of London.

 

Reviewed by Nicola Osborne.

 

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Tickets are £8.00 full price / £6.40 for concessions and can be booked through the EIFF website or by calling the festival box office: 0131 623 8030.

 

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