Crust - with many spoilers

The tagline reads; ‘Three ordinary people going for gold - with a seven foot boxing shrimp’. The rest of the extraordinary story of how Crust came to be is covered in Crust - Back Story. The production company responsible for reassigning the millionaire's money to unheard of movie directors was this one:

Verdict

My movie ratings consist of thumbs up or middle fingers as sometimes one starring something doesn’t shame it enough. 5 thumbs up = an absolute triumph. 5 middle fingers = a complete piece of shit, go fuck yourself.

Crust - 5 thumbs up

A funny, unique and well written British movie. An underdog success story in it’s own right, deserving but never quite achieving cult classic status.

Favourite quote “We’re not just hitting it with fists, we’ll be hitting it with all kinds of things for the TV show.” - Bill’s sales pitch to the TV channel.

Not forgetting:

“I think I’m gunna spend me life’s savin’s on a boxin’ shrimp, Steve.” - Bill’s revelation after he is layed out by a stranger in a red shirt.

“What sort of things are we going to be doing if you’re bored of sex now? Shafting Alsations?’ - Steve says this to his 17 year old disinterested girlfriend.

Favourite scene

The scene at Ulrika Johnson’s door may be the best thing I have ever seen. We’ve all been there as children. Dared to knock on a door for whatever reason, bottled it, hid and left the confused occupant looking around from their doorway wondering what’s going on. Bill and Steve play this scenario out as they ring the Gladiator's doorbell after getting her address from a dodgy TV exec. They stand in front of her house nervously waiting for her to answer the door and dive out the way before she can answer, leaving just the monstrous prawn. She faints and Steve attempts to French kiss her back to life. This is the best thing I've ever seen left in a doorway. It also genuinely stars Ulrika Johnson - at first I thought it must be a look-alike but Crust genuinely appears on her IMDB page along with other delights, such as; 15 to 1 Celebrity Special, Come Dine with Me Celebrity Special and who could forget the 2011 instant classic; The Chase: Celebrity Special.

Steve’s attempt to bring ice cream into the bedroom also offered a few laughs. His girlfriend ‘Shaz’ was less than impressed to discover he’d cheaped out and bypassed the Häagen-Dazs fridge for a solid yellow block of vanilla economy ice cream he struggles to apply to her using a plastic knife. This is the epitome of an expectations vs reality moment. Very relatable.

Best meme from the movie

Analysis

I went into this movie expecting to be more impressed with the premise than the actual film. The idea of a 7 foot boxing prawn sounded great for ten minutes or so but stretching that out for 90 minutes seemed a bit much. How could I have been so wrong? Crust has absolutely perfect pacing, incredible writing with gags that never fall short and even quite a convincing prawn. This isn’t about a prawn at all, it’s about likeable, relatable everyman trying to make an opportunity for themselves. Okay, it’s a bit about the prawn.

The biggest surprise for me was discovering 30 seconds in that the film was set in the Midlands! Not only that, but just down the road in Tamworth. How many movies can you name set in Tamworth? Once upon a time in the Midlands is the only I can think that comes close. Perhaps that made the characters and situations more relatable to me as the viewer and as 2020 has made clear, seeing people akin to yourself represented in the media is important. I would like to see more Brummy leading men. Specifically, a remake of Gladiator starring Jasper Carrot

The very British humour, colloquialisms and working class social commentary at work in Crust make me wonder what the Japanese audience really took from this movie, apart from the mixture of sports and sealife (The movie did very well over there, it’s all covered here). The character Hamid rounding off every sentence with “My man” must have proved quite confusing in the subtitles and the translations of specifically Midlands slang must have been a minefield. What did they make of Ulrika Johnson? Did Japan ever broadcast “Gladiators?” Perhaps it inspired Takeshi to build his whacky fortress. In the same sense I am now curious to think what inside jokes etc have gone over my head in translated foreign movies I’ve seen previously like Tampopo or Drunken Master? Did I miss the point?

Crust inspired a lot of movies which are now definitely on my watchlist. I would like to know whether the message of the sea creature belonging in the sea got across. If so, must every sealife sports movie end in the talented creature being released? Does crab goalkeeper get placed back under a rock on the beach, or, as I highly suspect, is it repurposed for some bizarre Asian medical practise along with 1000 shark fins and just a splash of bat soup?

I can’t believe this movie wasn’t better received. I imagine it was a bit before it’s time. 2003 cinema was a lot more serious with fewer avenues to present a gem like this. Blockbuster video was still around for God’s sake. These days we live in a world of Sharknados where it’s acceptable for Zombies to storm around the period drama Pride and Prejudice. If this movie had been created today I hope it would have been picked up by Netflix or at least one streaming service in order to give people a chance to discover it.

The bottom line

The cult classic that never was. Watch it, my man!