OxfordPress.com

Grade: D+

Verdict: A strained copycat movie with barely an interesting moment.

Details: Starring Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Carlyle. Directed by Ronny Yu. Rated R for strong violence, language, drug content and some sexuality. 92 minutes.

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Review: It's really time for a new formula on crime capers.

"Formula 51" is the latest in a flood of lesser imitators of such hipper-than-thou hits as "Pulp Fiction," "Trainspotting" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels."

In the hands of a good, bold filmmaker, that ineffable collusion of blood, mayhem, dark humor, clever twists and idiosyncratic behavior by unsavory characters can somehow translate lovingly on screen.

But "Formula 51," like so many strained copycats, is just unpleasant commotion--loud, crude and brutal. There's barely an interesting moment, and characters meant to be endearing bad guys are so indistinguishable from the real bad guys that it's impossible to care a fig about anyone.

Director Ronny Yu wastes the talents of Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Carlyle, whose respective characters in "Pulp Fiction" and "Trainspotting" were arguably the two best mad dogs in the sub-genre of ultra-cool comic thrillers.

In "Formula 51," they're a couple of unlovable rogues going through the motions. Jackson plays master chemist Elmo McElroy, who 30 years earlier blew a career as a legitimate pharmacist when he was arrested for smoking dope.

As the movie opens, Elmo is stuck in serfdom to "The Lizard" (Meat Loaf), a Los Angeles crime boss for whom he's developed a wonder drug so potent it makes cocaine and acid look like something peddled at a kid's lemonade stand.

Elmo doesn't like working for The Lizard, though beyond the fact that his boss is an obnoxious oaf, "Formula 51" never clarifies why.

To free himself, Elmo stages a little blast that wipes out a conference room full of The Lizard's associates, then heads merrily to Liverpool, England, where he's lined up another suitor for his drug.

Somehow, the filmmakers think audiences will connect with Elmo even as he commits mass murder in the movie's opening moments. But with no rationale made apparent for why dealing with a Liverpool thug would be better for Elmo than dealing with The Lizard, it's mighty hard to find anything heroic in this anti-hero.

Predictably but implausibly, The Lizard survives and assigns crack hit-woman Dakota (Emily Mortimer) to track Elmo down. Porcelain doll Mortimer is about as effective toting weapons as Jackson is wearing a Scottish kilt, one of the pointless character quirks that screenwriter Stel Pavlou, a Liverpool University graduate, assigns to Elmo.

Even more implausibly, Dakota turns out to be the bitter ex-girlfriend of Felix (Carlyle), a windy hoodlum who's reluctantly assigned by Elmo's Liverpool connection to look after the chemist in England.

Rhys Ifans rounds out the cast as a Liverpool mobster, yet another odious mad dog.

A car chase, some bloody hits and a couple of chemically induced gross-out gags later, "Formula 51" wraps up with a series of unsurprising twists and general indifference over who's alive and who's dead.

"Formula 51" flirts with an interesting notion: that in a world where some view Great Britain as the United States' de facto 51st state, crime kingpins there might come to resent the heavy-handed imperialism of their American overlords. The movie's original title was "51st State," apparently dropped because too little of that idea remained in the finished film.

— David Germain, The Associated Press