I was given this film to review last year, and hated it so much for so many reasons that I wrote the company to ask if they even wanted me to review it on my blog because I was going to slag it off so severely. They didn't respond, and I had better things to write, but I rediscovered this and thought I'd publish it as is, as the play-by-play commentary I had when I watched it.

I wasn't the only one who felt it was awful, either- it bombed in the cinema, and last time I saw it they were trying to sell it for 2 quid at Sainsburys. But the problem I really had with this is that every movie that thinks it's ok to sell DVDs by showing sex workers being raped, beaten and tortured, and the more we see the men doing this glorified and accepted, the further we go from helping sex workers. Danny Dyer, you were always a cunt, but this is a new level. Misquoted? Hah.

"Pimp"

This is a mockumentary... well, no, a movie in the format of a documentary, vaguely about pimps working in Soho's red light district. "Give an inch and take a mile".

5 minutes in, and the women are silent, the men are overly pleased with how well they can manipulate them, and I'm slightly horrified. "You bruised her, she's out of commission for a week!" Wow, lovely. One of the workers gets slapped for... what reason..?

All sorts of random racism against the Chinese. Lots of "we kept the hot ones for ourselves, dropped the mingers off at the immigration authority". Meanwhile, they terrorize the women into working for them- again, we're 12 minutes in and we've yet to hear a sex worker speak. I suppose given the name of the film it's about the men... "Trying to keep her productive". Basically, the story of this one girl, Bo, who had her child kidnapped by the Chinese, forced to work to get him back, then the main guy from this rival gang steals her and tries to force her. "It's not them that gets out of line, it's their greed"- the idea that these sex workers "need discipline" from these men. There's this whole idea of "oh, these girls could do so well if only they laid back and took it like a proper worker". Drug use suggested of course. These are mostly girls who worked on the street and then were... upgraded? to working indoors.

20 min in and I'm already waiting for one of these bad tempered men to not just slap but beat one of the women. "She'll turn up and then I'll have to discipline her and I fucking hate that part." yeah? poor fucking baby. Random topless trophy women. Fat girl humiliation who at least has the sense to tell Danny Dyer to fuck off, to the cheers of the other girls- one of the most realistic moments in the film. "Control your workers"- "your bitches adore you" "break that little tart in" also the implication that the women don't deserve any privacy- a "trans" worker (played by a woman) is pressured to pull up her skirt to show her cock. Also random homophobia.

I'm not really crying for any of these guys who are trying to make a living off of the backs of these women. First time we see a sexual act, it's a BDSM snuff film. "who would I go out with? they're all fucked up". "Political s/m is our thing, expressing outrage against corrupt systems"- yeah, right. the fetishisation of ethnicity. Delusional failed actress turned porn star. the usual tropes.

"Since when did whores get so fucking high and mighty?" said by a punter to one of the girls who refused to give a service to him./"He pays the money, he can do what he wants". The basic idea of "oh, she's (Petra) a junkie so her terror is just imagined". The slippery slope argument. Does it seriously take an hour into an 80 min film for Woody to feel some doubt about how this business is run??

Ah, Bo gets beaten for refusing to work- she refuses to work because working for Stanley means the people who kidnapped her child don't get paid, and might hurt him. Why the fuck is Bo comforting Woody..? Stockholm Syndrome much? He rescues this one girl out of the army of chattel and he's supposed to be a hero..?

Oh,  great, racism and torture! Lovely. Lots of jaded attitudes about these snuff films. They also seem to love showing these snuff segments over and over again- why? To desensitize the viewer? Oh please god let Danny Dyer get raped and murdered... oh, no, no, while we see snuffed women, no snuffed men I guess.

Oh and of course Bo falls for her pimp. Of course she does.