For writer-director Maeve Murphy, Taking Stock, a crime caper set predominantly in London’s King’s Cross district, represents a change of pace. It is larky, low-fi and plays, if I’m truly honest, like a 75 minute episode of children’s television, albeit one where the heroine, Kate (Kelly Brook) sticks her head in the oven in the first five minutes. It is, incidentally, the softest ‘15’ rated film you will ever see. Murphy’s last film, Beyond the Fire, released in 2009 was a love story between two traumatised individuals, a rape victim and a priest who had been abused as a child. The only thing the films have in common is the lead actor, Scot Williams, here cast as an accountant with a troubled past (hint: it isn’t that he hates double-entry book-keeping). Filmed in 2014 and formerly entitled The Riot Act, Taking Stock is something of a period piece in that it features London bicycles sponsored by Barclays; now they are sponsored by Santander and have gone from being Tory blue to Labour red, without the corresponding change in national government.
Like Beyond the Fire, Taking Stock is an award-winner. It swept the board at the Monaco International Film Festival of Non-Violent Films, namely Best Cinematography (Gerry Vasbenter), Best Producer (Murphy with Frank Mannion and Richard Yetzes), Best Supporting Actor (Junichi Kajioka) and the Independent Spirit Award. It should be added that not very many films were shown at this festival so it was not a crowded field. If you believe the director, this somehow helped the film get a UK cinema release, though the film poster, featuring Kelly Brook posing as Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker, misleads with the inclusion of Big Ben in the background.
When we first meet Kate, she has just been given one week’s notice in her job at the fashionable but not very popular shop Do South, which is like Habitat with the emphasis on tat. Her boyfriend has left her, taking the TV with him. She owes £4,500 in rent and discovers, after unsuccessfully trying to emulate Sylvia Plath, that her gas supply has been disconnected. This, gentle reader, is the best joke. Not only that, but on her way home, she planted her heel in some faeces.
If I tell you that the thing I liked most is that when Kate put her head in the oven, her un-shoed foot was convincingly dirty and floor-worn - I do like attention to detail - then you will understand that I am clutching at straws. The finale features a bike chase where the characters pedal around the same location again and again. How very Scooby Doo! But I’m getting ahead of myself. Kate searches for female serial killers on the internet and finds Bonnie Parker – not Myra Hindley as you might expect; she has fashion filters. This gives her an idea that no one in their right mind would have, to rob her boss, Christina (Lorna Brown).
Kate ropes in her fellow employees, Nick (Jay Brown) and Kelly (Georgia Groome) but has a harder time persuading electrician Sponge (Femi Oyeniran) to offer his expertise. Crucially, she is missing her Clyde Barrow, her Warren Beatty, her indecisive leading man who probably thinks this song is about him.
Sitting on an outdoor step like he has nothing better to do is sushi-eating sage, Yoichi (Junichi Kajioka), who early on when Kate asks if she can borrow his oven feeds her sushi. (These are the jokes.) For her daring plan to work, Kate has to replicate the key to the shop, learn the combination to the safe and get Sponge to disable the alarm.
You watch the film waiting for a twist. What you get is Kate fantasizing about being Bonnie Parker, wearing a beret to one side and posing with a hair dryer. For some reason her dream sequences are in black and white. I guess she is colour-blind.
The film builds to Kate’s awkward attempt at hoodwink accountant Mat (Williams) into helping her, even though he has already turned her down on Facebook. Why did he accept a friend request from Bonnie Parker, when she has been dead 80 years? Well, some men are desperate. Kate tries to tempt him with red wine and wiggling her bottom – yes really. But Mat’s power of resistance is, well, frankly normal.
Will the robbery go ahead? Will Kelly (Groome) end up drunk on a bicycle pedaling in circles and falling at the feet of a policeman? Why is one lampshade priced at £15.65 and an identical one £13.85? These are all questions that enable you to tune out.
The energy and the pacing are the best aspects of the movie, not to mention the colour-grading, which makes Taking Stock look a lot brighter than the average British film. Once in a while, Murphy shows us street life because, let’s face it, there’s not enough plot. I half-expected Yoichi to be Kate’s unlikely Clyde but he’s only there to dispense advice and cold fish with rice.
The film could have made a serious point about local shopkeepers being unable to keep staff on following the introduction of the London Living Wage, but it is happy to be a jolly inconsequential romp. The participation of Brook must have been something of a coup for Murphy. As it turned out, it helped the British star, best known for being a swimwear model and being eaten alive in Piranha 3D, secure a leading role in an American TV sit com, One Big Happy. (Well, maybe the producers saw the erotic thriller Three and thought she could do comedy.)
Taking Stock doesn’t make the case that more women should be directing films. It does suggest that directors should take advice on their scripts, nudging them towards wit or surprise rather than over-playing. With the appearance of a flick knife in the finale, I’m not sure Taking Stock is truly non-violent. It does feel shop-worn and past its 1960s sell-by date.
Reviewed at Regent Street Cinema, London, Sunday 14 February 2016 (yes, St Valentine’s Day, but I’m not religious), 19:30, in the presence of the director and selected cast
Pictured (left to right): Jay Brown, Junichi Kajioka, Rich Cline (moderator), Maeve Murphy and Scot Williams
