Genre:
Comedy
Release Date: 04/29/2008
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD2
Run Time: 82 Minutes
Distributor/Studio: BFS Entertainment
U.K. director
Chris Munro's wicked satirical
comedy Back in Business dissects and excoriates the slimy underbelly of British capitalism with a look at several high-rolling English con artists and the brouhaha surrounding their latest national scam.
Joanna Taylor (
Post Impact) and screen legend
Brian Blessed (
I Claudius) play, respectively, press officer
Fiona Arlington Spencer and press chief
Trevor Pilkington. As the byzantine story opens, the duo leaks to the public news of Britain's latest contribution to the space race: 'The Explorer,' an interstellar vehicle allegedly capable of mining an energy-rich substance on a foreign planet, that could thus save the Earth's energy crisis once and for all. In reality, the two "entrepreneurs" share the morals of an alley cat and a desire to shake down as many venture capitalists as they can find, illustrated by their previous success: conning a series of international businessmen into buying shares of British national landmarks, as a means of rescuing the Brit economy. And in reality, the 'Explorer' doesn't even exist - it represents only the latest in an endless series of paper-thin manipulative schemes. To help pull this one off,
Fiona and
Trevor reel in a number of accomplices:
Fiona's uncle,
Lord William Arlington Spencer (
Martin Kemp); techie and computer hacker
Travis Marks (
Stefan Booth), the son of
William's Cambridge buddy
Thomas Marks (
Chris Barrie, and then
Thomas himself. They plan to use the "invention" to wheedle billions out from under the noses of the Chinese - but fail to anticipate the interference of a nosy policeman (
Dennis Waterman) or of an irate group of Russian mobsters, who - upon smelling a rat - demand to see the Explorer with their own eyes.
~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide