The 51st State [Formula 51] ** (2001, Samuel L Jackson, Robert Carlyle, Emily Mortimer) – Classic Movie Review 8878

Och aye, Samuel L McJackson is a sight for sore eyes with golf clubs and a kilt as Elmo McElroy, a crooked master chemist who heads to the UKto launch a new designer drug in Europe, in Ronny Yu’s 2001 action comedy crime thriller The 51st State [Formula 51].

In Liverpool, he is met by crazy scouser hood Felix DeSouza (Robert Carlyle), and the odd couple get embroiled with hit girl Dakota Parker (Emily Mortimer), drugs king Iki (Rhys Ifans), Los Angeles slimeball The Lizard (Meat Loaf) and bent copper Detective Virgil Kane (Sean Pertwee).

Jackson and Carlyle are super as the Abbott and Costello of the underworld, but the rest of the acting is soon driven into the rough. Ricky Tomlinson plays Leopold Durant.

The scrappy, dated screenplay, written in 1994 by an unemployed Brit, Stel Pavlou, conforms to all the lazy clichés of the homegrown gangster flick. It’s nasty, brutish and (happily) short (at 93 minutes). But at least it delivers one great car chase and some blasts of blazing action, and gives strong roles for Jackson and Carlyle.

The 51st State [Formula 51] flopped. Costing $27,000,000, it grossed only $5,204,007 in the US,with a cumulative worldwide gross of  $12,881,605.

It is rated R for strong violence, strong language, drug content and some sexuality.

Writer Stel Pavlou, appears as a bouncer. By 2019 The 51st State is his only filmed screenplay.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8878

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