Duchess (2024) Movie Review

Neil Marshall specializes in genre filmmaking, with a particular penchant for spinning entertaining yarns with moments of gruesome violence. The fans of his “Hellboy” (2019) film characterize it as a violent ode to the Mignola comics strapped to a fast-forward button. And while that sounds awesome on paper, that’s the exact reason why the film doesn’t work. Competency is not the issue with “Duchess” (2024).

The script by Charlotte Kirk and Marshall, following a tough working-class petty criminal going on a killing spree to hunt down the ones responsible for the murder of her partner in the treacherous world of diamond smuggling, starts as a riff on a Guy Ritchie film, with a voiceover by Kirk describing the event occurring with a nonchalant flair, before using a flashback sequence to describe how we got here.

It starts off promising, albeit derivative, but as the flashback begins, it loses momentum completely and never recovers. The idea to set up the romance between Scarlett (Charlotte Kirk) and Rob (Philip Winchester) dovetailing into the viewers following Scarlett as she slowly and steadily gets involved in the diamond smuggling business, albeit from the periphery, is again a good idea on paper.

Duchess (2024) Movie Review — A still from “Duchess” (2024)

But it never launches off the landing strip with quite as much vigor as the initial sequence, instead going through the motions of their meet-cute, a cursory glance through Scarlett’s family, and then an exploration into the diamond smuggling business and Rob and his team consisting of Danny (Sean Pertwee) and Baraka (Hoji Fortuna). But by the time the inevitable double-cross occurs in Rob’s team, as well as a domino effect occurring from Scarlett trying to rescue the maid in their mansion, it all feels ho-hum, and you can’t be faulted for being checked out of the narrative.

As it stands, the true revenge narrative doesn’t kick in until an hour mark, and from there, the movie goes straight into B-movie, cheesy 80s action film territory, as directed by Panos Cosmatos or Mark Lester. If that had been the intention—to craft an 80s action flick filled with one-liners and cheesy delivery but with inventive violence—the script needed to be a swift 90 minutes long, with the set-up being established.

However, “Duchess,” being 112 minutes long, actively hampers the pace. It also doesn’t help that while the movie tries hard enough to establish relationships between Scarlett and the rest of the dramatis personae, it doesn’t manage to make their dynamics interesting or even memorable. It is content to remain by the numbers, which is perhaps fine, but when the plotting itself is so generic, it’s hard to remain invested. Scarlett attaining the cool moniker of “Duchess” is also delivered in a blase fashion, without giving any form of added weight to that moniker.

What makes the film stand out in some instances are the moments of gruesome violence and black humor. The instance of Charlie (Stephanie Beacham) tearing the tongue out of a tortured prisoner through that prisoner’s slashed neck is a pretty memorable image. Or take the instance of Baraka using a drill gun to carve a hole in the temple of one of the chief antagonists. Marshall revels in the visceral nature of the violence as well as moments of black humor, like Scarlett trying to shoot one of the men responsible for killing Rob, only for him to be run over by a truck in the middle of the road, and in a comically gruesome manner.

But these are all sparks of energy that are inconsistent in a script where the dialogue and banter sound like generic tough-guy statements. Marshall and Kirk, in the second hour of the film, try to evoke their sharpest and cleverest Guy Ritchie mannerisms through their banter-filled dialogues, but all their attempts at humor fall flat because they haven’t managed to set up the world or the characters in an interesting fashion, providing any compelling wrinkles.

Individual elements might work in a vacuum, like the details of the diamond operation, but they are presented by Winchester in his most noticeable American accent, explaining it to Kirk instead of visualizing it for the audience. There isn’t a sense of milieu as well because the movie jumps from one location to the next and yet also tries to be a very British crime revenge flick, ultimately accomplishing neither.

It’s a shame because Kirk’s physical presence is very believable and committed in her performance. Pertwee and Fortuna both understand the assignment and deliver their roles with competence. Pertwee is especially funny in his deadpan British humor, which he has been famous for throughout his career. The action set pieces are also designed well enough that action aficionados will find elements to enjoy. But rising above its generic roots is a hard task, and an unnecessarily long script doesn’t help.