Movie Nation

“Duchess” is the sort of very bad, over-the-top violent Guy Ritchie knockoff that you get when the wrong film actor or actress takes that “create your own breaks/write a role for yourself” advice seriously.

Charlotte Kirk‘s a Brit with a few bit roles in bigger films (“Ocean’s Eight,” “How to Be Single”) and a lot of C-reaching-for-B movies (“The Reckoning,” “The Lair” of various genres on her resume.

So she wrote herself a thriller that guaranteed a working vacation in the Canary Islands and a lot of meant-to-be-swaggering voice-over in that imitation Guy Ritchie gangster cockney that often comes off as tin-eared when he’s not writing it and Statham/Butler et al aren’t reciting it.

“Duchess” is about a tall, sexy lower-class London pickpocket with a closet full of attention-grabbing short skirts and a mouth full of moxie.

“Listen to my EYES and walk away,” Scarlett glowers at that one club crawler (Philip Winchester) who reads her game and likes what he sees on the dance floor. It’s not just her slinky-wear grinding that he appreciates. It’s the polished skill with which she lifts a wallet and passes it on to another dancer.

Rob isn’t just an “ex Marine, ex-con.” He’s “the future love of my life,” she narrates.

“Duchess” is about how she falls in with Rob’s “three musketeers” (Hoji Fortuna and Sean Pertwee play his cohorts), joins in the “conflict diamonds” smuggling game and gets tangled up in the London underworld, where Queen Charlie (Stephanie Beacham) presides and the bloody, lawless Wild West of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, where the dirty deals go down.

This is the sort of film you stumble across when you’re deep diving into Amazon Prime, wondering why they think charging extra for the flop “Penguin Lessons” is merited, and you see the great Irish character actor Colm Meaney (playing Scarlett’s imprisoned dad) and Beacham, who dates back to U.S. TV’s “Dynasty” in the credits and figure it’s worth a try.

It isn’t.

Kirk spends a lot of time dressing and undressing herself in an effort to tart up a script that’s beyond salvation. The film is basically a vengeance thriller that takes nigh on forever to get to the revenge part.

The fight choreography gives itself away as we see Scarlett’s brawling bonafides established — she trains as a boxer in a downmarket London gym — and we get only the barest hint of this diamond trade she’s dating herself into and must “take over” when she’s wronged.

Oh, you’ve got a CODE about “not buying” ‘conflict’ diamonds. And the diamonds are smuggled inside ORANGES. NOW we get it.

The incessant voice-over narration rarely rises above “days came and went” as our nicknamed Duchess hunts for and finds “the REAL Rob, the man who’d die for me, the man who’d kill for me.”

Kirk struggles to carry the picture on her own, as Winchester lacks the presence (like Kirk) to be billed this high in the project.

Beacham gives her all in some seriously sadistic mob boss scenes, and goes so far over the top you miss the soap opera subtleties of her past roles.

“Together we DRINK the blood of our enemies!”

The direction — by Neil Marshall, a long way from “The Descent” and “Centurian” — is pedestrian, the pace funereal and none of the sexed-up stuff — coitus right after a trip to the emergency room, having survived a beating — atones for how dim and dull and incomplete it all feels.

It’s all well and good to write your own big break. But this script doesn’t require script doctoring. It begs for surgery, transplants or implants, as there’s just not enough here to back up the vain and vainglorious voice-over Kirk figures will make up for all its other deficiencies.

Rating: R, bloody, graphic violence, sex, drugs and profanity

Cast: Charlotte Kirk, Philip Winchester, Hoji Fortuna, Sean Pertwee, Stephanie Beacham and Colm Meaney.

Credits: Directed by Neil Marshall, scripted by Charlotte Kirk, Simon Farr and Neil Marshall. A Saban Films release on Amazon Prime.

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