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List Price: $14.99 | | Label: Miramax Films
Salesrank: 7885
Released: March 23, 2004 |
| Our Price: $5.52 |
| Used Price: $1.60 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
From Stephen Frears, the Oscar(R)-nominated director of THE GRIFTERS (Best Director, 1990) and DANGEROUS LIAISONS, DIRTY PRETTY THINGS stars Audrey Tautou (AMÉLIE) in a harrowing tale of struggle and survival for two immigrants who learn that everything is for sale in London's secret underworld! Part of an invisible working class, Nigerian exile Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Turkish chambermaid Senay (Tautou) toil at a west London hotel that is full of illegal activity. Then late one night Okwe makes a shocking discovery, which creates an impossible dilemma and tests the limits of all they know! Honored with numerous European film awards and nominations -- including wins at the London Critics Circle Film Awards and the Venice Film Festival -- you'll find this gritty urban thriller to be thoroughly engrossing and impossible to forget!
Description of Dirty Pretty Things:
The luminous Audrey Tautou (Amelie) stars in Dirty Pretty Things, a riveting thriller about an illegal immigrant in London named Okwe (Chiwetal Ejiofor, Amistad), a doctor in his homeland who now works days as a taxi driver and nights as a hotel desk clerk. When a hooker tells him there's a mess in one of the hotel's bathrooms, Okwe finds a human heart in the toilet. He soon discovers a snare of desperation, poverty, and black-market body organs--and finds that his only friend, a Turkish hotel maid (Tautou), may be the next to be caught. Dirty Pretty Things, skillfully directed by Stephen Frears (High Fidelity, Dangerous Liaisons, My Beautiful Laundrette), fuses taut suspense with an unsettling portrait of life among the British underclass of immigrant service workers. Thanks to the excellent cast and script, the movie makes its social points subtly, while the gripping story coils itself around you. --Bret Fetzer
Dirty Pretty Things Reviews:
" Mission Impossible " for grown-ups 
2009-08-07 - I only rented this movie because of Audrey Tautou; turns out she is not the star. The MOVIE itself is the star.
After about 45 minutes of pure interesting enjoyment, I realized that so far there was no plot. Then, almost miraculously, a plot developed believably through the characters. Events resolve realistically and satisfactorily. Since the plight of illegal immigrants is shown in an almost documentary style as part of the storyline, the movie avoids being preachy. The main character is wholesome and dynamic while being humanly frail ( played by Chiwetel Ejiofor ). I call it " Mission Impossible " for grown-ups because a small group of friends pool their resources and accomplish something amazing and dangerous and they get away with it. They don't save the world, they just save themselves.
Runaway Train
2009-07-20 - Like a runaway train this movie starts out slow but boy does it pick up steam all the way to the very end. Enough twist and turns to keep you off balance and guessing.
3.5 stars out of 4 
2008-12-18 - The Bottom Line:
A searing and caustic look at London's underworld, Dirty Pretty Things follows a cast of foreign characters led by a wonderful Chiwetel Ejiofor in a plot revolving around exploitation and illegal organ transplant; it's well-acted and well worth your time.
Very different type of thriller
2008-12-08 - This is not your ordinary cops and robbers story. The protagonist Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is an illegal Nigerian immigrant in London who discovered a human heart blocking the toilet in the hotel where he works. He's a hard-working man who drives a taxi in the day and works in a hotel at night. He rents the couch of a Turkish girl, Senay (Audrey Tautou).
He reports the heart to his boss, who refuses to report the incident and advises the man that the hotel business is about strangers who will always surprise them. "It's our job to make everything pretty in the morning."
Okwe cannot speak to the police, but he cannot let the incident go either.
"Dirty Pretty Things" gives us a view of the seedier side of London. This is definitely a thinking person's mystery with a different and fascinating story. Kept me watching all the way through.
Rebecca Kyle, December 2008
Dirty Pretty Things makes the world smaller
2008-11-24 - Dirty Pretty Things is a great movie, with a strong message about how small the world is and makes one think twice about their purchases. Did someone have to endure working in a sweatshop to make my clothes? It opened my eyes about the world around me and through this movie the invisible (workers, and silent ideology) become visible and audible.
