Its perhaps a little surprising that Nick Moran, the diamond geezer who didnt really make a name for himself until Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels came along, would decide to produce, co-write and star in a film that so obviously sets out to take the plopsy out of the Mockney crime caper genre. Then again, the world would be a lesser place if we didnt all have free reign to take cheap shots at anything and everything done by Guy Ritchie.
Baby Juice Express is definitely a cheap shot, in as much as its both cheap (you can practically hear the sets creaking) and a shot (even if it is through a water pistol thats been spray-painted black). The cast is literally teeming with havent I seen him/her somewhere before? types, the better-known of which are the likes of Lisa Holby City Faulkner, Samantha Game On Janus and, making brief but hilarious cameos, David Ive got rubbish hair Seaman and Ray So do I Parlour. Now, its hitting the bargain bins of DVD stores the length and breadth of the country, just a couple of months after its original release.
But theres a sense of the hard-done-by here, for despite looking like its destined to be seen by virtually no-one, this is actually a decent little comedy. In a nutshell, its about what happens when a locked-up crim (Nick Brimble) decides he wants to produce a baby using the contents of his own erm nutshell. His missus (Janus) is on the outside, so hes arranged for an elaborate chain of couriers to smuggle his man-spunk across town to the lucky, lucky woman. It seems like a foolproof scheme that is until gangster-wannabe Moran and his three accomplices (Faulkner, Philip Davis and Joseph Paterson) decide to hijack the charmingly-named Baby Juice Express and hold its contents to ransom.
The best thing about this film is that it doesnt take itself remotely seriously. The premise is ridiculous, but it never pretends otherwise and theres a decent script with some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. It looks like Moran and his co-writer Michael Hurst (who also directs) are going to have to up their game if some serious recognition is what theyre after, but in comparison to some of the woefully bad Brit-coms Ive had the great displeasure to sit through of late (Sex Lives of the Potato Men and Tooth spring instantly to mind) this is well worth a rent.