Takes place in England. Shannon (Minnie Driver) is a nurse who evicts her boyfriend because he pays her no attention, even on her birthday. He is instead infatuated with electronic eavesdropping on other people's wireless conversations from which he collects snippets for some kind of artistic project he has in mind.
Frances (Mary McCormack), Shannon's best friend, is a struggling actor with a talent for changing her voice and accent. One of my favorite scene has Frances repeating a line for a cartoon using different voices and styles at the behest of the director.
Fooling around with audio equipment of Shannon's boyfriend after getting drunk, they hear burglars in the act of robbing a bank on Shannon's street. They know it is on Shannon's street because they her a police car out there window at the same time they her the burglars discussing it. They go to the police while the robbery is in progress, but the harried officer on the desk treats them as a couple of nuts.
The next day, when they hear newscast reports of the burglary, rather than going to the police again they decide to blackmail the crooks, based on names and a phone number they overheard, for a portion of the loot. The crooks turn out to be part of a sophisticated gang. The story continues with the girls clumsily trying to get a money "drop" from the burglars, and the burglars trying to find and eliminate whoever has been contacting them about the burglary.
Minnie Driver looks very cute, the acting is fine, and the film is fun to watch. However, the plot has major problems that require the girls to do things that are stupider then the girls appear to be, such as not going to the police again once they learn how dangerous the bad guys are. At one time the crooks are in a gun battle with the girls, who are using an arsenal of fully automatic weapons they stole from the crooks. The girls have the bad guys totally out gunned, but Shannon insists that Frances give her a chance to use an assault rifle, which she has never used and turns out can't control. That childish behavior is not consistent with her character.
SPOILER - The film never explains how Frances was not shot when Shannon repeatedly shoots her with one of the bad guy's weapon. Nor does it explain how Shannon, who is acting dead in the same room as the other players, somehow steals a large arsenal from the crook's weapons storage and gets outside behind a hedge before the others exit.
It also isn't explicit about what happens to Kerrigan, the "Don" of the gang, at the end. It also doesn't explain why the police stop looking for the two attractive girls who reported the crime while it was in progress. - SPOILER
I would have rated it higher if not for all those goofs, because I did find it enjoyable.
Frances (Mary McCormack), Shannon's best friend, is a struggling actor with a talent for changing her voice and accent. One of my favorite scene has Frances repeating a line for a cartoon using different voices and styles at the behest of the director.
Fooling around with audio equipment of Shannon's boyfriend after getting drunk, they hear burglars in the act of robbing a bank on Shannon's street. They know it is on Shannon's street because they her a police car out there window at the same time they her the burglars discussing it. They go to the police while the robbery is in progress, but the harried officer on the desk treats them as a couple of nuts.
The next day, when they hear newscast reports of the burglary, rather than going to the police again they decide to blackmail the crooks, based on names and a phone number they overheard, for a portion of the loot. The crooks turn out to be part of a sophisticated gang. The story continues with the girls clumsily trying to get a money "drop" from the burglars, and the burglars trying to find and eliminate whoever has been contacting them about the burglary.
Minnie Driver looks very cute, the acting is fine, and the film is fun to watch. However, the plot has major problems that require the girls to do things that are stupider then the girls appear to be, such as not going to the police again once they learn how dangerous the bad guys are. At one time the crooks are in a gun battle with the girls, who are using an arsenal of fully automatic weapons they stole from the crooks. The girls have the bad guys totally out gunned, but Shannon insists that Frances give her a chance to use an assault rifle, which she has never used and turns out can't control. That childish behavior is not consistent with her character.
SPOILER - The film never explains how Frances was not shot when Shannon repeatedly shoots her with one of the bad guy's weapon. Nor does it explain how Shannon, who is acting dead in the same room as the other players, somehow steals a large arsenal from the crook's weapons storage and gets outside behind a hedge before the others exit.
It also isn't explicit about what happens to Kerrigan, the "Don" of the gang, at the end. It also doesn't explain why the police stop looking for the two attractive girls who reported the crime while it was in progress. - SPOILER
I would have rated it higher if not for all those goofs, because I did find it enjoyable.