The Number One Girl (2006)

You won't be disappointed!

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

.... does a movie so bad, so wooden, so awful, and so painful get made. How this movie was ever green-lighted is beyond me. I can't believe Vinnie Jones agreed to be in this abomination. The acting was worse then that of soft-core porn thespians seen on Cinemax at 4 am. The script must have been written by a retarded monkey, with a typewriter. The director might as well have been Helen Keller. And the soundtrack was some of the worst music I have ever heard in my life. I bet that is the elevator music that plays in hell.If you haven't figured it out by now..... I hated this movie with all my heart and soul. If I could go back in a time machine and either stop Hitler's reign, or this movie from being made, it would be a difficult choice.

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

The Number One Girl may be better titled as "The Worst Film Ever!" What we have here is an advert for DTV avoidance and a film that perhaps only serves to make Steven Seagal's movies look a hell of a lot better. This is nonsensical garbage of the highest order.The films plot is bizarre and perhaps the worst excuse for action I have ever heard. Action star Joey Scalloni (Tony Schiena) visits his old buddy Dragos (Vinnie Jones) in England. Dragos is a big time gangster who runs a brothel but also organises a world beauty pageant. Scalloni the big Hollywood star comes to England to judge the competition. The UK entrant is Tatayana, one of Vinnie Jones girls and favoured bits on the side and one of the first things Scalloni is told is not to think of trying it on with her. So for the first hour of this boring snoozes the film is essentially just Dragos and Scalloni hanging out like good old buddies whilst also watching over the pageant. Then during the swimwear judging competition, Scalloni is invited on stage to dance with the final ten participants, including Tatayana. This is by the way on live TV and with Dragos watching from the best seat in the house. Scalloni for little apparent reason decides to damn near have full sex with Tatayana on stage with millions watching. This leads to Dragos going nuts, and hijacking the building. He gives Scalloni an ultimatum: Fight his way through his goons and Dragos himself, or he and the girl die! It's as moronically simple as that! The last 20 minutes is purely Tony Schiena fighting numerous enemies, one at a time in the same place. It's all dully choreographed and poorly performed, looking more like practice, blocking tapes.So the plot is nonsense but does the cast pull this through? Nope, not at all. Schiena, who wasn't bad in Wake Of Death, is terrible given a lead role here. He's wooden, amateurish and really just plain old bad. Vinnie Jones is also terrible. Lisa McAllister stars as Tatayana, the number one girl, and although she's suitably gorgeous, she's a terrible actress too. In fact there are a host of terrible actors who seem as if they were hired off the street. It's home movie acting at its worst. That goes hand in hand with the mundane, home movie type cinematography and this film, reportedly shot for $5 million, is seemingly much, much less than that. Only a sadly frail looking Pat Morita, in one of his last roles, retains any pride here, and even he is shockingly below par. Director Luc Campeau is terrible and in his debut here, fails to create anything remotely interesting or exciting aside from the promising opening scene. Truth is from the opening I thought this film showed promise, with a nifty credits sequence combining with a glimpse of Scalloni shooting the final scene of his latest blockbuster. It's nicely edited and an interesting sequence which only makes the diabolically bad remainder of the film, all the more shocking. This is something to avoid at all costs and has no redeeming qualities. *