Review of Sorted

Introduction

Having his production stalked by Channel 4’s docu-soap ‘Movie Virgins’, must have seemed like a good idea for Alex Jovy, who gained some much needed free publicity for his debut feature. Flagrant opportunism aside, Jovy’s attempt backfired and the resulting film, ‘Sorted,’ an uneasy mixture of rave culture, mystery thriller and urban love story, failed to make any impact at a UK box office saturated with impotent, over-stylized posturing.

Video

The check disc contained a flaw in its aspect ratio which we are assured by Metrodome will be amended for the disc’s official release. Aside from this, the video quality is excellent, far cleaner and with more crisp colourisation than most low-budget releases. No visible flaws.

Audio

The Dolby 5.1 is crisp, clear and frankly deafening at times. Fans of house and trance music will have fun with the film’s multiple rave scenes. That said however, Guy Farley’s orchestral score is painfully generic and woefully over-used, attempting the lend the film an emotional gravitas it doesn’t even begin to possess. Irritating also, that the volume of the dialogue is played back at a lower volume than that of the music, making the conversations hard to decipher at times. Absolutely no subtitles don’t help either.

Features

A surprisingly rich selection for such a minor and forgettable release. The stylish opening menu is slightly convoluted, but with some investigation, it reveals as much bonus material as you could want. Although the short featurette and outtakes are perfunctory, the deleted scenes and 45 minutes of on-set interviews are intriguing and well-presented. We also get some cast/crew bios, a theatrical trailer and a woeful audio commentary, featuring Jovy and a couple of suits occasionally popping up to natter inanely. Jovy provides more evidence (as if it were needed) that he is technically competent, but completely ignorant about narrative and character.

Conclusion

Cosseted bureaucrat Matthew Rhys releases himself from the muddy daily grind of Scunthorpe and toddles off to London to investigate his rich lawyer brother’s apparent suicide. There he meets a cadre of weird characters in London’s underground club scene, including a bizarre Rocky Horror meets Lock Stock baddie played by Tim Curry, muttering mutilated Shakespeare at every available opportunity. Rhys also falls for his brother’s square ex-g-friend Sienna Guillory who seems to know more about her beau’s death that she’s letting on.

An eclectic cast, featuring an eccentric collection of Z-List TV refugees like Kelley Brook, Tim Vincent and Jason Donovan, doesn’t save this silly, ineffectual twaddle. Jovy fails to juggle the multi-faceted nature of the story in any convincing or original way, rendering the thriller elements dull and predictable, the rave story a mere colorful backdrop and the love story absurd, sentimental and even a little perverse by the end. Unbelievably, only Jason Donovan comes off with any credibility as a Mad-Hatter DJ transvestite. The feckless superficiality was to be expected, the stifling dullness comes as something of a surprise. A deserved failure.