• Genres: Comedy, Drama, Crime
• Plot Outline A north London postman who gets involved with a gang of criminals
• Plot Synopsis: Ray runs North London’s most powerful criminal gang, and his nephew Jude is a polished and successful member. Jude’s boyhood friend Jonny comes to Jude with an idea he wants to pitch to Ray; Jude is reluctant to mix friendship with business (and family), but he does arrange a meeting. Ray takes Jonny on (he uses his job as a courier to steal credit cards), but Jonny soon finds himself bored: the gang is more interested in goofing around and planning Ray’s wedding than in fighting, havoc, and mayhem. Jonny wants violence, so he repeatedly tries to start trouble with the South London equivalent of Ray’s gang. Will he succeed? If he does, will he find glory in war?
• Plot Keywords: Independent Film | Cockney Gangster | Anal Sex | Cocaine | Gang Member | Shot In The Head | Stabbed In Stomach
• Actors: Sadie Frost, Jonny Lee Miller, Jude Law, Ray Winstone, Kathy Burke, See more
• Directors: Dominic Anciano, Ray Burdis
• Producers: Dominic Anciano, Ray Burdis

Editorial Reviews

In the wake of Quentin Tarantino’s genuinely inventive and impressive Reservoir Dogs, American indie “rebels” saturated the market with raw, violent, self-consciously clever crime thrillers and caper films. The overkill buried the genre, but the British have filled that much-needed void in the years since with such films as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Love, Honor, and Obey is one of the most disposable entries, which is too bad considering the caliber of the cast. Jonny Lee Miller is the wannabe gangster who cajoles his best buddy Jude Law into getting him into big, bad Ray Winstone’s mob. When he gets bored because “everybody is busy poncing about” he decides to ignite a gang war with rival Sean Pertwee. The versatile Kathy Burke is funny as the frustrated wife of an impotent gunman, Sadie Frost is largely wasted as Ray’s not quite blushing bride, and Rhys Ifans leers and sneers as a hotheaded thug. Ostensibly the movie is a comedy, full of smarmy sex jokes, tough guys goofing in karaoke numbers, baffling scenes of sadistic violence played for laughs, and Miller narrating in full clown make-up. Dominic Anciano and Ray Burdis, who not only write and direct but costar as bouncers with an Abbot and Costello patter, play the whole thing like a comedy improvisation gone horribly wrong. It’s oddly fascinating in parts but ultimately so awkward and unfocused it dissolves away in mean-spirited meaninglessness. –Sean Axmaker