The Number One Girl (2006)

"The Number One Girl" is the front runner for worst movie of the year. I can't hate this movie more if I tried.The plot is about Joey Scalini (Schiena) who is asked to be a judge in a beauty pageant run by his old friend Dragos Molnar (Jones) who is also a gangster. Joey eventually falls for the title character Tatiana (Lisa McAllister). But Dragos doesn't like that and he goes insane. He closes down the pageant after party and turns it into a fighting ring. Now Joey has to fight Dragos and his bodyguards to the death! Everything about this movie is absolutely terrible:The acting: Tony Schiena has put in better work in the Van Damme flick "Wake Of Death" but shows no talent or charisma here. Vinnie Jones needs to get this one off his filmography fast. He's better than Scheina, but not by much.The pacing and directing: The movie is less than 90 minutes but it feels like an eternity. The directing is filled with static shots of nothing happening. In the pageant scene he's not even trying to cover up the fact that the contestants aren't singing(or acting for that matter).The fighting: The fight scenes are downright awful. Every move is cut too fast so you can't see what's going on. Seagal's stunt doubles are better than these fighters.In the end, trust me, you never want to see this... ever!For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

There are bad films; there are really bad films; there are absolute turkeys.........and then there is The Number One Girl; a film so dreadful, so badly thought through, so horribly put together that seeing is believing – I have two regrets regarding it: the first is that I even sat down to watch it while the second is that it was a direct to video release and as a result; the critics never got the chance to tear this monster the 'new one' is deserves. The film, and incidentally one of the worst of the decade out of the countless many I've seen, is a cosmic blow out of truly epic proportions: a cinematic tsunami; a volcanic eruption of badness; a sorry, woeful excuse for a feature film. A film that begins with a fake-trailer to an action film that exists purely within this movie's universe, and ends with the most absurdest of finales. I think the immediate opening was a fun poke at action films, complete with fancy camera gimmicks and stunts – the truly frightening thing is that's exactly what this picture ends up as.The film, made by one-time only director Luc Campeau, sees a production assistant take the helm of the piece while a mixture of supporting talent and mere extras adopt the lead roles around which former footballer Vinnie Jones and the easily identifiable Pat Morita operate. It's too bad that everyone looks like they've each strolled onto the screen out of separate films. Jones' character of Dragos Molnar, who might be foreign with that sort of name but possesses a pretty good English accent, heads a beauty competition over in the English capital of London in which he invites American action film star Joey Scalini (Schiena) to partake in the judging. Scalini gets all the fancy treatment whilst over there with the added bonus he gets to meet all of the beautiful women gathered there for the show. But there is one rule: don't go getting 'too close' to any of the contestants.The laying on of that final point is painful. Dragos dangles the carrot, and the film sees its lead character gobble it up with guilty, obligatory joy. The film is a one note documentation of a man's would-be gradual descent into obsession with the forbidden fruit, a piece that scandalously ignores practically every other item it has going for it by way of what this beauty show is all about; why it even exists; why Dragos is so unhinged and overly protective of the contestants and how such a volatile man came to be so rich and so well en-downed with a family. The film is an emotional dead-zone; a love story that doesn't exist between two people who are not even characters, but just exist on screen – best (or should that be worst?) highlighted during a woeful, painful, excruciatingly bad montage in which a character engages in gym activity and narrates his deep feelings for one of the women contestants to himself. All that's missing from this segment is a blinking green beacon in the corner of the screen and a subtitle telling us that "This is where everything will change and stuff happens." As a lead, Joey is established as hard-bodied and somewhat 'typical' thanks to the opening fake-trailer, but the film ultimately becomes what it sends up. I don't know how most other people roll, but I find beauty contests such as the one involved to be pointless, leery, horrid, disgusting things in the first place; and yet the film has no statement on them or their existence in the world, instead goes to great lengths to establish 'so-and-so' are favourites and that they hope 'such-and-such' will win but it all amounts to absolutely nothing, bar an excuse for the film to encompass some shots of glammed up women in little outfits. Joey is a judge, of whom are equally despicable in their own way. But we're allowed to like him because we're led to believe, through the aforementioned emotionless montage. The voice-overs during this segment sound like they're being read by the actor, there and then for the very first time, off of a piece of paper. It turns out he has a soft spot for the lead contestant Tatiana (McAllister): a girl with a Russian sounding name, being played by a Scottish actress whose filmic nationality I don't recall; English, I think. The actress that plays her's largest cinematic role since was as a 'Passenger' in 2008's The Dark Knight.Everything about The Number One Girl is dead on arrival. The action archetype send up; the chemistry between the two leads; the fact they're filming on public, non-closed off streets around London with members of the public looking in on the shooting; the manner in which I'm pretty sure the Nigerian contestant's name changes half way through; the way in which the film descends into messy, brainless thumping and pounding as violence and fighting becomes the order of the day when Jones goes absolutely spare out of the blue when two characters are actually dumb enough to cavort in front of everyone – it's big, loud and dumb whilst not much fun. Somewhere in there is some sort of statement about 'What is entertainment?' and 'What do we accept to be perfectly fine televisual content these days?' with the whole finale to do with going so far enough to kill someone in front of a packed TV audience; but it's all hopelessly lost in a hapless and painful exercise. The Number One Girl is an absolute disaster: a train wreck, a motorway pile-up, a capsizing of a ship all happening at once as a comet crashes into the ongoing madness and mayhem. One wonders what might happen if you were to bring this film up in a mocking fashion whilst in Vinnie Jones' presence; more of the immediate above, I would think.

Just turned up in Melbourne, Australia in December 2007. Never a good sign! Not only straight to video, but late to video.I've seen Vinnie Jones drag other crappy movies from total crap to watchable crap (say Condemned or Slipstream). A true scenery chewer, one of the best.But even Jebus himself couldn't have saved this woeful turkey. Started bad, got worse and surprisingly even worse.I can tolerate the bad acting, the bad script and bad music but the direction was truly pedestrian.Avoid at all cost, I want by 2 dollars and 2 hours back!

Tony Schiena plays Hollywood action hero, four-time martial artist champion, and all around schmuck Joey Scalini. After wrapping up on a current production, he travels to England to visit his long time gangster friend Dragos Molnar (Jones), and to act as a co-judge in an internationally televised beauty pageant called the Miss Fashion and Cosmetics World Competition, which, by the way, is also sponsored by Dragos, the intent being to put a legitimate face on his criminal enterprises. Joey soon finds himself surrounded by beautiful women, but one in particular catches his eye, the contestant from the United Kingdom named Tatiana (McAllister), who, in fact, turns out to be Dragos' number one girl…you see, Dragos, while married with children, shares his home with any number of women whom he grooms for success, the only stipulation being they allow him to snog them whenever he feels like it (apparently Dragos and his wife have an understanding). Anyway, as the "competition" begins, we're treated to some really rotten lip syncing by various contestants (here's a tip, when fake singing, actually hold the microphone to your gob instead of waving it around…that way it might appear to the more moronic viewers the words coming off the tape are actually coming from your mouth), followed by the swimsuit competition held in Dragos' new nightclub (the Nigerian contestant sure sports a lot of junk in her trunk). After a couple really lousy, hideous rap acts stink up the joint, the contestants and judges start dancing, allowing Joey to grind on Tatiana in front of Dragos who's sitting in audience, to which he reacts by kicking out the audience, barring the doors, and turning the place into an Ultimate Fighting Championship arena, as Joey must now fight not only a series of Dragos' muscle bound bodyguards, but finally Dragos himself in an all or nothing scenario. If Joey wins (no one wins with this film, especially not the viewers) he gets to leave with the girl, and if he loses, well, let's just say it's the end of his supposedly promising career (along with his life)…oh, did I mention all of this is being televised around the world?I wanted to like this movie (I like the Vinnie Jones), I really did, but it was just so damn disappointing. If you're coming into this looking for some action, I'd suggest skipping the first hour all together, as it's only a overly long, drawn out, and painful set up for the big fight sequence at the end. Even when the action does cut in, it's really not worth it given how poorly it was executed and shot. I did learn a number of things while watching this film, though…1. Internationally televised beauty pageants sponsored by gangsters are most likely fixed. 2. London is the style capital of the world. 3. One way to deal with being in love with a woman you can't have is to make it with two, sleazy women simultaneously. 4. If you're a beauty contestant who is also the property of the guy running the show, don't sing a song about being in love with someone else and make cow eyes towards that person while performing, as it tends to really upset your sugar daddy.There were quite a few things wrong with this movie, the main elements being the rotten script, predictable story, and the simplistic direction. The acting felt shoddy throughout, but I'd attribute that more to the three, previously mentioned factors than the performers themselves. I really didn't care for the main character much, as he seemed like a real sleaze, only interested in scoring with babes. At one point he claims to be in love, but then we see him making the scene with two women while looking at the headshot of the woman he's supposedly in love with, as if to say "Yeah, I'm making it with two babes, but I'm really thinking of you", which comes off as somewhat repulsive. To top it off, the guy was a real idiot, putting the moves on a woman he had been told numerous times by his gangster friend to stay clear of, with the threat of severe bodily harm implied. The dialog is incredibly insipid, often trying to sound all cool and such, but failing miserably, which really drags that first hour out into a real painfest. This isn't helped by the direction, as the movie is populated with flashbacks, recollections, unsteady, up close shots, and a whole lot of slow motion sequences and establishing shots (we get it, the story takes place in London given all the cockney accents and the visual of Big Ben…enough with the traveling montages already). It seemed like the director tried to incorporate an 'arty' feel using tricks he'd perhaps seen others employ, only here it was obvious and only served to disrupt the overall flow. The big fight sequences in the last fifteen minutes wasn't all that thrilling, especially since one would have to figure Joey would make it through the various thugs in order to get to the big showdown with Dragos. As far as Pat Morita, I don't know what his purpose was in the film, other than to pick up a check and lend his name to the production, as his character was fairly insignificant to the story. All in all unless you were in this film as an extra, or are a glutton for cinematic punishment, I really can't see anyone going out of their way to see this dud as it was about as much fun as stepping on a toenail clipping imbedded in the carpeting in the middle of the night on your way to relive yourself.Cookieman108