Scarlett (Charlotte Kirk) is a woman of deceivingly good looks - "deceivingly" because she uses her outwards appearance to distract from her actual business, which is picking pockets, especially at high end bars. Then though she has the bad luck to pick the pocket of an actual hard-boiled gangster, Rob (Philip Winchester), and for all intents and purposes, that should have been it - except, Rob falls in love with her at the very first sight, and Scarlett follows suit soon, and for a time things work really well between them, with things going so far as to Rob introducing Scarlett to the inner workings of his line of work, diamond smuggling, and introduces him to his main business partner, Charlie (Stephanie Beacham). And when he takes her to his villa in Spain, she thinks he's in heaven - until his business partners (Colin Egglesfield, Iván Hermés, Jota Jota Ramos) turn against him, take out almost his whole gang before executing Rob and Scarlett out somewhere in the wild. Only Scarlett doesn't die, she returns to London with plans to take down Rob's killers and take over their diamond trade - which was originally Rob's organisation, so only fair. Thing is, they're a small army, and she only has Rob's trusted right hand men Danny (Sean Pertwee) and Baraka (Hoji Fortuna) and his housemaid (Giada Falzoni) whose life she has once saved by her side, so she pretty much has her work cut out for her ...

Colm Meany plays Scarlett's estranged and incarcerated father, who unfortunately graces the screen for just one scene.

Now if you look at Duchess from a philosophical point of view, it might scene a tad archaic, with an eye-for-an-eye attitude and a predilection for violence - but then again, Duchess is an action movie of the revenge variety that's supposed to work more on a cathartic than a word-for-word level, and as such it works quite beautirully, there's plenty of well-stages action here, and the camera doesn't shy away from things when they get gory (and often they do), and the female badassery shown here is quite welcome, even if it leans at times towards the psychopathic. And add to this a fittingly dynamic directorial effort and a rock solid cast, and you've got yourself great genre entertainment.

Duchess comes to select UK cinemas August 9th and on digital download August 12th 2024.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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