Fat Slags (film)

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Fat Slags
Fat-slags-movie-poster-2004-1020344618.jpeg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Ed Bye
Written by William Osborne
Produced by Charles Finch
Luc Roeg
Starring
CinematographyJohn Sorapure
Edited byMark Wybourn
Music by David A. Hughes
Production
companies
Artists Independent Pictures
Funny Films
Distributed by Entertainment Film Distributors
Release date
  • 15 October 2004 (2004-10-15)
Running time
73 minutes [1]
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Box office$105,091

Fat Slags is a 2004 British independent gross out comedy film based on the Viz comic characters of the same name. [2] Despite the relative popularity of the comic strip (and its celebrity cameos), the film was panned by critics.

Contents

Plot

Sandra (Fiona Allen) and Tracey (Sophie Thompson) are two friends who are known as the infamously vulgar and crass Fat Slags. They live in the little town of Fulchester and like to drink booze, eat kababs and bang on people. One day, The slags were working in a steel-works factory and were about to be given a raise by their boss but instead they got fired due to Sandra leaving her fire torch burning and causing the whole factory to explode. Now unemployed, The slags rot in their dirty house until they notice a letter inviting them to be guests on a daytime chat show. The pair leave their hometown for London, aiming to sleep and drink their way to fame and fortune. Throughout their journey into the world of fame, they come across a shop that sells fashion clothes but they couldn't afford any of them due to them being too expensive.

On the day of their arrival in London, an American businessman named Sean Cooley (Jerry O'Connell) who is an internationally renowned billionaire and owns Trans Global Media was on a phone call to the Dalai Llama but a nearby flower pot drops on his head and he suffers a blow that renders him to go temporarily insane. When he is giving a slideshow talk in his conference room, a technical glitch switches the channel to the chat-show that Sandra and Tracey are on. Sean catches their look and falls for their larger-than-life antics. Sean gets his lawyer, Victor (Anthony Head) to pick up the slags and take them to a hotel where they feel comfortable here. Meanwhile, back in Fulchester, Sandra and Tracey's boyfriends, Baz (Tom Goodman-Hill) and Dave (Henry Miller) see their gals on the chat show and hitch a ride to London but their driver was not paying attention to where he was going thus causing a crash, Baz and Dave were then sent to immigration by the police. Two days before London Fashion Week, Sean forces fashion designer Fidor Ulrich Cosimo Konstantin (James Dreyfus) to base his upcoming collection on the Fat Slags. The slags eventually get fit for the show, and they show off their studs ending off with them exposing their breasts to the audience thus winning the contest.

A media sensation is brought about as Sandra and Tracey take the United Kingdom by storm, hitting #1 in the charts on Top of the Pops, having their own mansion and inadvertently winning the Turner Prize. As far as the press is concerned when fatness becomes a hit. This new trend leads to Cooley's assistant, Paige (Geri Halliwell), gaining major weight.

The Slags maintain their vulgarity, which coupled with an endearing innocence connects with the British public. But in private, jealousy drives a wedge between Sandra and Tracey as they vie for Sean's attention. Tracey punches Sandra, knocking her out and goes out on a date with Sean, she also accidently bites Sean's willy off when his limo crashed saving a bunch of nuns who were crossing the road. The slags then have a massive fight and accidently kill off the General Secretary of the United Free World thus they end up locked away in the Tower of London. Sean calls up Tracey in his hospital bed and as he was about to engage her to marry him only for him to be hit in the head again (this time by an X-Ray machine). When Sean regains his mental faculties, he turns on the girls and their popularity comes to an end.

Sandra and Tracey escape the tower and do a payback on Sean for rotting them by pulling a Mission Impossible plan to steal his laptop that has illegal files on them. Victor chases after them but they eventually throw the laptop on his car window thus exploding the car in the process. When they arrive home, they realize that their friendship is the only real thing they have in their new world and they reunite with their boyfriends who came back after being shipped to Afghanistan.

In the mid-credits scene, they perform a dance routine in a pub ending with them exposing their breasts.

Cast

Production

In August 2003, it was announced a feature film adaptation of Fat Slags was slated to begin shooting scheduled 10 August. [4] Fat Slags was part of a wave of sex comedies slated for production in the U.K. alongside other entries such as Sex Lives of the Potato Men , School for Seduction , and an attempted Carry On revival Carry On London, with the production of the latter soon cancelled. [4]

Reception

Critical response

Fat Slags was universally panned upon release. [5] John Plunkett, writing for The Guardian , stated "It has plenty of gross-out stuff, but chucked in with an eerie lack of enjoyment or conviction. Depression seeps out of the screen like carbon monoxide." [6] Adrian Hennigan for the BBC wrote "This painfully slapdash comedy – with caricatures instead of characters – lurches from one crude, staggeringly inept set-piece to another with the subtlety of a three-legged elephant." [7] Graham Dury, the comic strip's creator, stated that Rita, Sue and Bob Too was a more accurate live action depiction of the comic book characters, [8] telling the BBC that he was so appalled by the film, he threatened to stop drawing the strips. [5] British film historian I.Q. Hunter listed Fat Slags as one of the contenders for worst British film ever made. [9]

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References

  1. ↑ "Fat Slags". British Board of Film Classification . Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  2. ↑ "Goodbye, Fat Slags". Metro . 19 October 2004. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  3. ↑ Ivan-Zadeh, Larushka (16 August 2010). "The Expendables' Dolph Lundgren on his big-screen comeback". Metro. Archived from the original on 29 November 2012.
  4. 1 2 Dawtrey, Adam (3 August 2003). "'Fat Slags' gets Green light; Aardman toons up". Variety. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  5. 1 2 "Viz to drop Fat Slags in protest". BBC News. 19 October 2004. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  6. ↑ Plunkett, John (19 October 2004). "Viz gives Fat Slags the elbow". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  7. ↑ Hennigan, Adrian (8 October 2004). "Fat Slags". BBC. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  8. ↑ Judd, Terri. "Lordy! 'Crass' movie means it's the end of the Fat Slags". The Independent . Archived from the original on 14 December 2013. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  9. ↑ Hunter, I.Q.; Porter, Laraine, eds. (5 April 2012). "From Window Cleaner to Potato Man". British Comedy Cinema. Routledge. p. 154. ISBN   978-0415666671.
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