The 51st State (5 Stars)

This is another one of the films that I've forgotten for the last eight years, i.e. I haven't watched it since I began writing my blog in September 2010. I have to say "forgotten" in inverted commas, because I can still remember it well from the many times I watched it before then. The film is a masterpiece. In fact, I'd go as far as to call every film made by the director Ronny Yu a masterpiece.

It's all the more surprising that the film was a box office flop. Alone the big name actors, Robert Carlyle and Samuel L. Jackson, should have drawn the crowds into the cinemas in droves. However, if you google for the film or its pseudonym – it's called "Formula 51" in America – you'll find many fans who call it underrated or even one of the best films ever made. That's what qualifies a film as a cult film.

The film begins in 1971 with Elmo McElroy (Samuel L. Jackson) driving away from his graduation as a qualified pharmacist. He's pulled over by a policeman who discovers marijuana in his car. He's sentenced for drug possession, which makes it impossible for him to work as a pharmacist.

30 years later we see that he hasn't been idle. He's spent all this time perfecting a new recreational drug that he calls POS 51. He's developed it for an American drug lord, a pompous man who calls himself the Lizard and only refers to himself in the third person, but he thinks he can get a better deal if he sells the formula to a buyer in England.

The Lizard employs an expert hitwoman, Dakota Parker, to get rid of his enemies. He sends her to kill the English buyer. The story is complicated by the fact that Dakota's ex-lover, Felix DeSouza (Robert Carlyle), works for the English drug lord. Then there's a corrupt policeman who's anxious to get a percentage of whatever new drugs there are on the market.

Add to that football, skinheads and nightclubs, and the film degenerates into pure chaos.

This was only the second film in which I saw Rhys Ifans, after "Little Nicky". It established him as one of my favourite actors. He's simultaneously so cool and so evil as the nightclub owner and wannabe drug lord Iki.

There's something about a girl with a gun. Emily Mortimer combines the look of a girl next door and a smouldering sexpot.

Robert Carlyle and Samuel L. Jackson can only look on in amazement.

The story is well written, and Ronny Yu doesn't put a foot wrong with the fast paced directing. The character mix is so ideal. It's easy to believe that people like this could really be walking the streets of Liverpool. The humour is secondary to the action, but when it's used it's effective. "The 51st State" is a magnificent work of art, and it's difficult for me to believe that anyone wouldn't like it.

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