Neil Dudgeon Movies

As the summer sun shines down on England in the early 1980s, two boys who couldn't be more different are brought together by a mutual love of cinema and a desire to emulate their favorite action movie icon. Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner) is a well-mannered schoolboy being raised in an ultra-religious community that deplores such corruptive distractions as television and seeks to maintain its purity by severely limiting contact with the outside world. In order to exorcise his creative inner demons, Will has taken to sketching imaginative drawings and complex illustrations. Lee Carter (Will Poulter) is the school terror, a rampaging hellion whose overaggressive behavior has made him an endless source of frustration to the faculty, and a source of fear to his fellow classmates. As fate would have it, Will is in the school hallway avoiding exposure to the classroom television when a fed-up teacher ejects Lee from the classroom. Though at first it appears as if Lee is about to torment timid Will just as he does the rest of the student body, the two form a tight bond after Will convinces Lee to view a bootleg copy of Rambo: First Blood. When Lee informs Will that he wants to shoot a homebrewed version of the violent action film for an upcoming amateur filmmaking contest, a sudden streak of rebellion prompts his sheltered classmate to readily agree. As the summer wears on the two boys set out to create the ultimate no-budget action movie, but their grand vision hits an unexpected hitch when a busload of French exchange students arrive at the school and the leader of the pack attempts to hijack the production. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Based on author Helen Fielding's sequel to Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason picks up four weeks after the original film left off, with Bridget (Renée Zellweger) emotionally satisfied at long last with Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), her barrister boyfriend. Stability in Bridget's life, however, quickly becomes a contradiction in terms. Though Mark is openly supportive of Bridget's eccentricities -- and there are many -- she is nonetheless threatened by Mark's young, nubile intern, not to mention irked at finding out that he is, among other less desirable qualities in her eyes, a conservative voter. Complicating issues further is the reentrance of her ex-lover, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), whom Jones, perhaps mistakenly, thought she had finally gotten over. Before long, the situation escalates into another series of embarrassing circumstances for Bridget, who is faced once again with a crippling feeling of self-doubt and has only her diary and friends to combat it. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

Joanne Whalley stars in this slick British thriller about the usual bond between a mentally-scarred psychologist and a traumatized prostitute. Dr. Caroline Henshaw (Whalley) is a sexophobic, anorexic, workaholic shrink who puts her work ahead of her relationship with her long-suffering husband (Neil Dudgeon). When she encounters masseuse and battered wife Sandra Maitland, she comes to believe that the girl's thuggish mate should die...and sets out to do the deed. This film was screened at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Recalling The Sweet Hereafter, this drama explores how a working-class couple manages to carry on after the accidental death of their only son. On the same night police find stolen goods in the east London house of construction worker Woody (Ray Winstone) and Sonia (Pauline Quirke), the two are concerned when their eight-year-old son Lee doesn't come home from school. At the police station, Woody learns Lee died after being struck by a hit-and-run driver. Woody and Sonia are at a loss to deal with this emotionally draining event that alters their lives. Shown at the 1997 Dinard Festival of British Cinema (France) and the 1997 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

In this historical drama produced for television, Richard Sharpe (Sean Bean) is an officer in the British Army who has his own way of doing things, but has risen to a rank of power thanks to his bravery and steely intelligence under fire. Sharpe is a Captain of the Battalion of South Essex, a platoon of inexperienced soldiers Sharpe is trying to mold into an efficient fighting force. Much to Sharpe's annoyance, South Essex looses an important battle thanks to the incompetence of Sir Henry Simmerson (Michael Cochrane), and their regimental flag and standard is stolen from them by French forces. The same battle took the life of one of Sharpe's closest friends, so now he's determined to get his revenge by taking from the French their prized standard, a golden eagle. Sharpe's Eagle also features Assumpta Serna as Teresa, a feared Spanish terrorist who is also Sharpe's lover, and Katia Caballero as Josephina, a widow of Sharpe's acquaintance. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Set in post-WW I Ireland, Fools of Fortune takes place on the huge estate of the aristocratic Quinton family. Sheltered from the economic and political travails all around them, the Quintons are shocked into the Real World when one of their workers is ritualistically murdered. This is but one more bloody chapter in the ongoing struggle between the IRA and the British Army. Previously noncommittal, the Quintons are thrust into the middle of the struggle, After a deadly confrontation in which most of his loved ones are killed, young Willie Quinton (Sean T. McClory as a youth, Ian Glen as an adult) vows revenge. He briefly forgets his new purpose in life during a romantic liaison with his cousin Marianne (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), but a renewed cycle of tragedy galvanizes Willie into disastrous action. It is difficult to sort out the heroes and villains in Fools of Fortune; it is a certainty, however, that the true victims are the Innocent. Michael Hirst based his screenplay on a novel by William Trevor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This unadorned biography of playwright Joe Orton (Gary Oldman) charts his bawdy, dangerous relationships. Alfred Molina plays Orton's brutish lover, Kenneth Halliwell, a pathetic figure who becomes horrific and then tragic before the film is over. The hilarity of scenes from such Orton plays as Loot and What the Butler Saw is evenly balanced by the bleakness of the playwright's tormented (and tormenting) off-stage existence, which ended suddenly at age 34 with half a dozen blows to the head from a hammer. Prick Up Your Ears is based on the book by theater critic John Lahr, who is played in the film by Wallace Shawn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide