Shooting Fish (1998)

best movie i've ever seen.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Ahh, British Comedy, it is in a category of its own and generally always gives what it promises. As you can tell, I liked this movie for its clever wit and simple intelligence of the main characters and the cunning schemes that they pulled. As Baldrik would say in Black Adder, I have a cunning plan. And their plans were very cunning, very clever, and quite amusing at that.Shooting Fish is about a couple of orphans, one from New York and one from England. The one from New York was a con-man who was very clever at getting money. At the age of 8 he was caught by the IRS putting money into a bank account in the Chase-Manhattan Bank. The question was, what was he doing with a bank account. The other, Jeremy, is an electronic genius and when both of them get together they are able to fleece money out of everybody.The movie opens with a little scheme where they are demonstrating a talking computer to a lot of businessmen and manage to gain lots of money off of them. The girl that they hired, a medical student, is a but suspicious but they convince her that it is all very Robin Hood - steal from the rich and give to the poor. The thing they don't tell her is that they are the poor that they give to. After they finish this scheme, they catch thieves breaking into their car and stealing a computer. At first I thought they were simple thieves, but when we visit their house and see that it is extremely opulent, I realised that they were in fact industrial spies.They live in a huge water tower in what is a home of clever gadgets and secret rooms. They are trying to save up two million dollars to buy a mansion and they salvage anything to use in their schemes to make money. Some of them are for ten thousand at a time, while others are simply fifty pound jobs where they move insulation from one house to another. It is interesting that during the insulation scam, they leave the poorer lady alone while they fleece the richer ones.Shooting Fish is a great little movie. It is not one of deep themes, it is a simple enjoyable movie where those cast out of society take back what was theirs in clever little schemes, and even though they spend a few months in gaol, it does have a happy ending. The thing I really liked is that the judge was dressed in purple. That simply shows me that they bothered to research the English courts and do a decent job at it. This movie is cool.

As many people have mentioned on this page SHOOTING FISH had a lot of potential as it centered around loud mouthed American Dylan and geeky Englishman Jez who are a couple of scam artists . We British have a sort of sneaking respect for these type of con artists ( As long as they con other people of course ) and there's a lot of room for explosive comedy potential as we see Dylan revealing a new type of computer word processor that has a volcabury of hundreds of thousands of words in its database so I sat back ready to enjoy this British comedy but halfway through I was bored senseless It's very obvious what went wrong . Director and co-writer Stefan Schwartz has decided that a laddish comedy will only appeal to 50% of a potential audience so has made a movie that will also appeal to fans of soppy romance by introducing a love triangle featuring Dylan , Jez and Georgie . Unfortunately SHOOTING FISH will ONLY appeal to fans of soppy romance which probably makes up 3% of the audience . This actually seems to be a problem with Schwartz as his future films like THE ABDUCTION CLUB and THE BEST MAN also feature soppy romance in abundance. Fair enough if you want to make a gooey rom com then go ahead but make sure the central premise allows it . Watching very patchy funny scenes like " LESLEY IS DEAD MAN " convinced me that this would have worked without the lovey dovey stuff which seems to have been shoehorned in and it's this that brings the film down Interesting trivia point about Stefan Schwartz : He once had a walk on part in Battlefield , my least favourite DOCTOR WHO story

Ha! What a romp! Although not as funny...'Shooting Fish' is in the same tradition as 'Saving Grace' and 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.' Very silly and very entertaining British humor. My daughter and I enjoyed several belly laughs with this one and she even figured out the title without having to be told. And added feature was the delightful sound track!It's rare to find a modern movie you can watch with a 14 year old and both enjoy! And I have to say, Kate Beckinsale, 'Emma' (1997) (TV) series fame, is a winsome doll. It won't work to try and make much sense of this movie...just think of it as The Odd Couple (Dan Futterman, Stuart Townsend) on Virgin Atlantic.

I have seen this film so many times and never get sick of it. The casting is brilliant with Dan Futterman and Stuart Townsend in fantastic performances.The plot is quite original following Dylan and Jez - two English con artists who are tricking people out of their money by selling voice recognition computers and other false devices. They need two million dollars to buy the house they never had - having grown up as orphaned children. On one of their scams they employ a secretary and medical student named Georgie, who is convinced they are raising money for an orphans project. This adds romantic themes into the story to make it even more entertaining. A stand out is the interesting relationship that Dylan and Jez have with each other, Dylan being the fast talking American and Jez being the British techno genius. I recommend 'Shooting Fish' to all movie-goers. It has a great soundtrack, is funny, romantic, creative and a great achievement for British filmmaking.