Product Description

A Turkish chambermaid working at a London hotel full of illegal activity discovers a human heart in a toilet.
Genre: Feature Film Urban Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 7-SEP-2004
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9896 in DVD
• Brand: TAUTOU,AUDREY
• Released on: 2004-03-23
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.com
The luminous Audrey Tautou (Amelie) stars in Dirty Pretty Things, a riveting thriller about an illegal immigrant in London named Okwe (Chiwetal Ejiofor, Amistad), a doctor in his homeland who now works days as a taxi driver and nights as a hotel desk clerk. When a hooker tells him there's a mess in one of the hotel's bathrooms, Okwe finds a human heart in the toilet. He soon discovers a snare of desperation, poverty, and black-market body organs--and finds that his only friend, a Turkish hotel maid (Tautou), may be the next to be caught. Dirty Pretty Things, skillfully directed by Stephen Frears (High Fidelity, Dangerous Liaisons, My Beautiful Laundrette), fuses taut suspense with an unsettling portrait of life among the British underclass of immigrant service workers. Thanks to the excellent cast and script, the movie makes its social points subtly, while the gripping story coils itself around you. --Bret Fetzer

From The New Yorker
Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the African-in-exile hero of Stephen Frears's extraordinary London thriller, drives a cab during the day and works as a desk clerk in a good hotel at night; he keeps himself awake by chewing on some sort of African root. Like Travis Bickle, Robert De Niro's overstimulated psycho in "Taxi Driver," Okwe never really sleeps; unlike Bickle, Okwe is a good man, even a fanatically good man. In four or five frantic days, he tries to save another illegal immigrant, Senay (Audrey Tautou), from the clutches of the cheerfully sinister manager of the hotel in which they both work. Se–or Juan (Sergi Lopez), as he's known, offers forged passports to illegals in return for a kidney or some other organ that he can sell on the black market. There are a few grisly scenes in the elegant upper rooms of the hotel, but "Dirty Pretty Things" is not a violent thriller. It might be called a social thriller-a tightly knit suspense film that reveals more of the lives of immigrants in London than the most scrupulously earnest documentaries. The great cinematographer Chris Menges keeps the images cool and crisp. There's no murk, no "atmosphere." However harried, Okwe, a great chess player, has to see every move in advance as he defends himself and his friends from the treachery on all sides. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

gripping intense and engaging
Probably the best cast I have seen ever, and they are all relatively little known actors. An absolutely must see if you can handle it. The struggle as it really is rather than the glorified struggle Hollywood often clings to.

Poorly Scripted But Still Engaging
Dirty Pretty Things is a reasonably good thriller set in the rather depressing world of immigrant workers in London. The film is part horror story as a hotel clerk from Nigeria discovers that the hotel is being used for an illegal human organ scheme. Chiwetel Ehiiofor is very strong in the lead role and Audrey Tautou does well as a Turkish immigrant who is struggling to survive and escape London for New York. Where the movie bogged down a bit for me is in some of the moralizing dialogue gets to be a bit too contrived and not true to character. Other than that flaw the film is unusual in it's subject matter and interesting on a number of levels. It certainly demonstrates the cruel and mercenary nature of people who are ready to exploit the vulnerable among us.

Dirty Pretty Things
Shows how you can be taken advantage of as a desparate not legal citizen. Great foreign film.