B. Monkey

B. Monkey
DVD cover
Directed by Michael Radford
Produced by Nik Powell
Colin Vaines
Stephen Woolley
Screenplay by Chloe King
Michael Radford
Michael Thomas
Based on B. Monkey
by Andrew Davies
Starring Asia Argento
Jared Harris
Rupert Everett
Music by Luis Enríquez Bacalov
Jennie Muskett
Cinematography Ashley Rowe
Edited by Joëlle Hache
Distributed by Miramax Films
Release date
 6 November 1998 (UK)
10 September 1999 (USA)
Running time
 92 minutes
Country United States
United Kingdom
Language English
Italian
French
Box office $39,371 (USA)[1]

B. Monkey is a British-American 1998 crime drama film directed by Michael Radford. Originally, Michael Caton-Jones was attached to direct the adaptation of the homonymous book by Andrew Davies, but left over creative differences. Asia Argento was allegedly sexual assaulted by Harvey Weinstein during the production of this film.[2]

Plot

Alan (Jared Harris) is a schoolteacher in London who also moonlights as a jazz disc jockey for a hospital PA system. One night after work, he goes to a bar and sees Beatrice (Asia Argento), a beautiful woman who is arguing with two men. Alan is immediately captivated by Beatrice and begins to pursue her. What Alan doesn't know is that Beatrice is an infamous thief known to the police as "B. Monkey" (named for her ability to break into anything), and the men she was arguing with were Paul (Rupert Everett) and Bruno (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a homosexual couple who are her partners in crime. When Alan becomes aware of Beatrice's secret, he tries to lead her into a safer and more honest way of life, even as she lures him into the thrilling existence he's been dreaming of.

Cast

ActorRole
Asia ArgentoBeatrice
Jared HarrisAlan Furnace
Rupert EverettPaul Neville
Jonathan Rhys MeyersBruno
Julie T. WallaceMrs. Sturge
Ian HartSteve Davis
Tim WoodwardFrank Rice
Bryan PringleGoodchild

Reception

Film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 63% based on 19 reviews.[3] Metacritic has the film listed as a 49 out of 100, indicating mixed reviews, based on 10 critics.[4]

Anita Gates of The New York Times had a mixed review of the film but thought highly of the actors:

Soundtrack

Creative differences

In October 2017, Michael Caton-Jones revealed that he had chosen Sophie Okonedo, to star. However, the producer, Harvey Weinstein, decided the actress wasn’t "fuckable". Caton-Jones and Weinstein discussed the matter heatedly, and Caton-Jones said, "'Don’t screw up the casting of this film because you want to get laid', whereupon he went mental." Weinstein then leaked to Variety that Caton-Jones had walked off the movie due to "creative differences". Argento, who replaced Okonedo, was one of three women who in 2017 were reported in The New Yorker to have been raped by Weinstein; she said that she submitted to Weinstein because, "I felt I had to, because I had the movie coming out and I didn’t want to anger him."[6]

References

  1. ↑ "Box Office Mojo". Box Office Mojo. 1999-09-10. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  2. ↑ "Asia Argento Comes Out Swinging Against Harvey Weinstein | E! News". Eonline.com. 2017-10-10. Retrieved 2017-10-19.
  3. ↑ "Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  4. ↑ rafaelm. "Metacritic". Metacritic. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  5. ↑ Gates, Anita (1999-09-10). "New York Times movie review". Movies.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2012-03-14.
  6. ↑ McHenry, Jackson (October 17, 2017). "Director Says Harvey Weinstein Recast the Lead in His Film Because the Actress Wasn't 'F*ckable'". Vulture.com.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.