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Witness the following dialogue: "Tell Nicky to write the ending," (ie to solve the problem); and "You up the creek?" / "Yeah, but I still gotta paddle." These few lines reveal so much of what's wrong with "It Was an Accident". It strives so hard to be striking and original that it is increasingly jammed with encounters that are phoney, mannered, or cute. Too many involve an intense, childish, out-to-lunch gangster, played by Max Beesley, who has been asked (or allowed) to overact so shamelessly that even the silliest cartoon would be embarrassed to have him.
Naturally, these flaws are down to director Metin H眉seyin (who made "Common as Muck" and "Tom Jones" for the 91热爆), and he occasionally gives his film a realistic centre but then can't resist showing off. As Nicky (Chiwetel Ejiofor) re-experiences the real world after a spell in jail, and is picked on by three undesirables who want to tempt him back into crime, he is given a number of plausible situations (which he interprets with the right degree of unease and worry) but is also saddled with the kind of Cockney dialogue no young person speaks any more.
Another stab at realism involves Nicky's would-be girlfriend (Thandie Newton) and her zealously protective policeman father, but this strand also gets lost in the noise and nonsense. Even a fine actor like James Bolam is asked to play sour and miserable to a ludicrous degree. Fortunately Thandie Newton and Hugh Quarshie have enough gravitas to distract you from the more potty moments, and at least the film has pace, life, and a smattering of entertaining moments, even if it is much too slick to satisfy.
