| Director Michael Winterbottom is surely one of the most prolific filmmakers today or ever, releasing seemingly a film every year, and always changing tack and direction at will and with ease. To his credit they are always fascinating affairs and worth watching as his naturalistic style informs many of the conversations within his films, making the audience feel part of the action. Sometimes jarring and often challenging subject matters are chosen without necessarily politicizing the action or the characters, rather letting the actors free to express themselves without polemic or distraction to a cause. Here Steve Coogan plays a man affectionately referred to as the “King of Soho,” who many will have heard of but few know much about, except that Raul Raymond was once Britain’s richest man, an impresario behind a lucrative empire of strip clubs, soft porn magazines and real estate who arrived in London with £5 in his pocket. | Coogan plays him as an avuncular if self-absorbed figure with a disarming predilection for schoolboy innuendo. Watching his cavort with naked women will bring mirth and titillation to others and wrath to a few I’m sure. The cast list reads like a Who’s Who of British entertainment with some solid performances and good lines thrown in. The film is not shocking yet does show naked flesh aplenty, it appears that Winterbottom presents facts plainly and without judgement and wraps the whole piece up as a frisky and entertaining romp. |
