Plot: What’s it about?
Plunkett & Macleane is about two men in 1748 London that are down on their luck and need each other to get back onto their feet in the game of life. Macleane, Jonny Lee Miller (Trainspotting and Hackers), is a former Captain who has his problems of gambling and drinking and can’t seem control his urges. His counterpart Plunkett, Robert Carlyle (Ravenous and The World is Not Enough), is a former apothecary who has lost the only woman he loved and now robs people to make mends meet.
One evening Plunkett and his partner at the time was robbing a stagecoach when it crashed into a jailhouse. His then counterpart found a large ruby on one of the men and swallowed it to keep for himself. He was shot and told Plunkett what he did before he died and Plunkett escaped. Plunkett later dug up the body and had the ruby taken out of him by Macleane who was in the prison cell for public drunkenness and witnessed the act. Plunkett and Macleane surrendered while under attack for grave robbing. They were taken to a prison where Macleane negotiated their terms of leaving by giving them the ruby that Plunkett now had swallowed and passed. They decided to join as a team in robbing the rich. Plunkett would be the man handling the gadgets and teaching Macleane how to use a gun. Macleane would be the gentleman to get inside all of the parties and find out who had the money and where it would be to rob.
Macleane needed to get back into the swing of things in high society so he went out and bought some new clothes, a wig and a new apartment with some money that Plunkett had stashed away. While at a poker night Macleane ran into an old friend of his, Lord Rochester, Alan Cummings (Goldeneye), who told him whom the big winner was that night and where the other parties were. Rochester had no idea that his sharing of parties and rich people were helping Macleane to rob them. He was just glad to see his old friend. Plunkett and Macleane robbed dinner parties, stagecoaches and anything else they could to make some money. While robbing the stagecoach of the Chief Justice, Macleane falls in love with his niece, Lady Rebecca, played by Liv Tyler. Plunkett explains to him that they are doing this for business not for pleasure.
Plunkett and Macleane have made a better name for themselves as the gentlemen robbers. There has been a task force of sorts assembled to bring down these two men. There was no police force at the time and this was a matter that was being argued to the Chief Justice Lord Gibson, Michael Gambon (Sleepy Hollow). The people aren’t happy with Lord Gibson and they want a new man as the Chief Justice. The man in charge of the task force is Chance, Ken Stott, (The Boxer). He is an evil character who doesn’t care about anyone except himself. He wants to find the two responsible for the thievery so he can be the next Chief Justice. And he will do anything in his power to get there, even murder.
The style of this movie was pretty well done. The costumes of the 18th century London look really good and seeing the dirty streets and men hanging in them looked surreal. The movie was shot with very little light at times and kind of had a gray tone to it. It must have been purposely done to give you the idea of the darker times back then. I somewhat enjoyed the movie and felt that it could have been better, but it is worth a rental if you like time period movies. You should get a laugh or two from them. If you choose to buy it then you should be able to find it for about $20.
Video: How does it look?
The movie is filmed in a 2.35:1, 16×9 enhanced letterbox format and on the flip side of the disc they also offer the full frame version. The picture looks excellent and I only noticed a minor scratch in the film during one of the scenes. I went back to see if it was just me, but it was there. It only happens for a millisecond and doesnt hurt you from your pleasure of the film. The dark scenes had no grain in them and the black level was very good. Like I said earlier the movie has a sort of gray tone to it and it looks great.
Audio: How does it sound?
The 5.1 Dolby digital soundtrack sounds great as well. There are quite a bit of action sequences in the film where guns are shooting off and fireworks exploding. This is a surprisingly good soundtrack from the folks at USA Films. Just remember to go into the language part of the menu and select the 5.1 soundtrack. The DVD will default to the 2.0 soundtrack if you don’t. The subwoofer is fairly quiet and comes into play in one of the explosions and the surrounds help enhance the mood of the picture. /font>
Supplements: What are the extras?
You get two theatrical trailers, (2.0 sound and 1.85:1) one from the US and the other from the UK. It is kind of neat to see the contrasting styles of two different trailers for two parts of the world. You get some cast and crew biographies and a five minute featurette that has some interviews with the cast and filmmakers.
