The 51st State

The inimitable Samuel L. Jackson makes his return to my blog with yet another of his many awesome cinematic exploits. You thought he was cool as ice in Jackie Brown, you ain't seen nothing yet! This time, he's bringing his bad-assness to the UK with a tale of drugs, deception, football and Kilts. This is The 51st State.

A Canadian-British co-production, The 51st State was released in 2001 under the direction of Ronny Yu (Snakes On A Plane, Fearless), and stars Mr Jackson alongside Robert Carlyle, Rhys Ifans, Emily Mortimer, Sean Pertwee and Meat Loaf. It tells the story of a Master Chemist who travels to Great Britain with the hopes of selling a prototype drug. It's slick, racy, a barrel of laughs, and it has Samuel L. Jackson in it. What more could you possibly want?

The film opens in California, where recent college graduate and Isaac Hayes impersonator Elmo Mckelroy (Jackson) has just obtained a degree in Pharmacology. Unfortunately, he is pulled over by a police officer while on the road, and caught with a cache of drugs. As a result of the prosecution, he is unable to practise his desired profession.

Cut to 30 year later, and we find Elmo has resorted to working for renowned drug entrepreneur The Lizard (Loaf). Keen to show off McElroys latest invention, a new 'wonderdrug', Lizard rallies a group of equally unscrupulous characters for a demonstration. Unfortunately for Lizard, Elmo has tired of his employer, and rigs the place to blow, killing all except Lizard, who fell through the floor and avoided the blast.

Following this unconventional way to quit your job, Elmo heads for Liverpool, where he has a deal arranged with a crime lord named Leopold Durant (Ricky Tomlinson), who is interested in Elmo's creation. To help secure the deal and the drug, Durant sends one of his underlings, a local fixer named Felix DeSouza (Carlyle), a foul-mouthed, bad tempered, Americanophobe, to meet Elmo at the airport.

Back in California, The Lizard takes the whole 'attempted murder by former employee' thing very personally, and hires hit-woman Dakota (Mortimer) to fly to England and eliminate Elmo, in exchange for $250,000 in cash, and erasing her gambling debts. She agrees to this, but upon discovering that what Elmo has to offer is still of critical value to him, Lizard has second thoughts.

With several people now after Elmo and the formula to his revolutionary new party drug, DeSouza find himself stuck together in a class mismathced scenario, throwing up some side-splitting arguments, encounters and conflicts as Elmo attempts to sell his product to it's new prospective buyer Iki, (Ifans), an unhinged night club owner and narcotic enthusiast. Finding himself in the cross hairs of top-notch hired gun Dakota, and the target of much scorn from local Detective Virgil Cane (Pertwee), who see Elmo's plans as threat to his own agenda, what results is one of cinemas most deranged and chaotic bodies of work. The characters are crazy, the story, while non-sensical, is always surprising, the action scenes are wonderfully gratuitous, it's non-stop excitement and risibility from start to finish. While a critical and commercial flop, it remains, to me, one of Jackson's most underrated films. If you love mindless fun, be sure to add this to your collection.