Review - Donkey Punch (2008 - Dir. Oliver Blackburn)

It's not very often I want to turn a film off and go and do something better instead. (Sounds a bit like 'Why Don't You?') Donkey Punch is one, if not the most, irritating film I've seen in a long while. Not since the similar Very Bad Things have I seen a film where I haven't cared for a single character and every one of them has been severely annoying. I really, really hate this film.

Three young ladies are having a holiday in Spain. Pop and crisps are involved. They meet up with three cheeky fellows who take them to the yacht that they work on. There we meet a further fella, the brother of one of the others, who seems to be the only one with any sense. More pop and crisps are consumed. They discuss the pleasant act of 'Donkey Punching': whilst engaging in doggy-style rumpy-pumpy the gentlemen punches the lady on the back of the neck causing her to clench. Lucky lady. Five of them retire for a game of tiddlywinks. (The orgy is filmed in spectacular BBC-o-vision, one kissing incident in particular brought forth a major rant from my delicate mouth.) The king of irritatingness, Bluey (Tom Burke), eggs on Josh (Julian Morris), to Donkey Punch his lady friend (even though later he claims he was joking.) You can guess where this is going...

The first problem is that this event that kicks off the rest of the film happens about half an hour into the running time. Half an hour of not really much happening. I'd got who the characters were, what their situation was, within the first five minutes so why bother with half an hour of tedium. It's not as if the extra twenty five minutes endeared the characters to me. I just wanted them all to die.

The acting is shocking. Soap opera level. I cringed at so many moments. Bluey makes one of the most ridiculously inappropriate noises at one point. If you've seen it you'll know what I mean. Nicola Burley, playing the lead, Tessa, is really bad. I've realised that I haven't had a Ray Winstone rant in these very pages. Suffice to say, I'm not that keen on his acting abilities. But I thought I've give his daughter Jaime Winstone a chance. I'm not that keen on her either. The only actor who can claim the slightest amount of self respect is Robert Boulter.

The script doesn't help the actors with some severely flat dialogue. Also, I'm fairly used to characters in horror films behaving in, let's say, slightly quirky ways but these clowns are so stupid. Imagine it's night and you've escaped from your captors on their yacht, in a small dinghy. You're about a hundred yards from the yacht and they're travelling in the other direction. What do you do? Keep quiet? Hide? Make sure that you don't light anything up to give away your position? Obviously not. They shout at each other and start lighting flares. Then they're surprised that they've been seen. 

I really have nothing positive to say about Donkey Punch. Okay they've made a film, which I can understand is loads of hard work and a bit of a battle at times. But everything about it is so unlikeable. It's not very often that I say I wish I hadn't watched a film, (even Bare Behind Bars is better than this) but if there is one character that I want to forever extract from my memory, it's Bluey. I'd rather spend some quality time with the final version of Bobby from The Divide. As luck would have it I sold my Blu-ray version for £2 at a local car boot. So it only cost me 50p in the end (believe me, it's dear at that). I couldn't help feeling sorry for the person who bought it...
0/10
evlkeith

If you like this you could also try:
Very Bad Things, Eden Lake.