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B. Monkey

Film still

B. Monkey - 1998 | 115 mins | Thriller, Crime | Colour

The Production Team

Director: Michael Radford.
Producer: Colin Vaines and Stephen Woolley.
Script: Chloe King, Michael Radford and Michael Thomas. (from the novel by Andrew Davies)
Cinematography: Ashley Rowe.
Film Editing: Joëlle Hache.
Production Design: Sophie Becher.
Art Direction: David Hindle.
Costume Design: Valentin Breton Des Loys.
Makeup Department: Dave Elsey, Eammon Hughes, Beverley Pond-Jones, Jamie Pritchard and Colin Ware.
Sound Department: Steve Finn, Geoff Foster, Rodney Glenn, Derek Holding, Peter Lindsay, Gerard McCann and Marco Streccioni.
Original Music: Luis Enríquez Bacalov and Jennie Muskett.

The Cast

Asia Argento - Beatrice
Jared Harris - Alan Furnace
Rupert Everett - Paul Neville
Jonathan Rhys Meyers - Bruno
Julie T. Wallace - Mrs. Sturge
Ian Hart - Steve Davis
Tim Woodward - Frank Rice

Plot Synopsis

Gallic-influenced romantic thriller based on the novel by Andrew Davies. Michael Redford’s overwrought film suffered a troubled post-production and is overall a stylish crime caper featuring an implausible romance and a lack of gritty underworld authenticity that. B. Monkey marks the English-language debut of Asia Argento, the smoky-voiced daughter of Italian horror director Dario Argento. Co-star Rupert Everett turns in a fabulously seedy performance as the dissolute gangster Paul and Rhys Meyers shoots a subordinate glare as Paul's tightly-wound ex-lover.

Tired of her life of crime, a wild and beautiful Italian thief named B. (Asia Argento) begins to seek a way out of her dangerous profession. While trying to kick her addiction to crime, she finds love and a stable relationship with Alan (Jared Harris); a naïve London schoolteacher who serves as a jazz disc jockey at the local hospital. Alan is immediately enraptured by Beatrice but doesn't know she is an infamous thief known to the police as "B. Monkey" due to her criminal agility. Her ex-partners in crime, bi-sexual lovers Paul (Rupert Everett) and Bruno (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), eventually persuade B to come out of retirement for one more jewel heist but the robbery awry when a customer is shot. Alan and Beatrice decide to seek a new life away from London in the Yorkshire countryside but Beatrice's past soon catches up with her.