Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

It’s been a long time since there was anything noteworthy to report regarding the lovely Gillian Anderson. I harbored a shameless crush on her for much of the lifespan of X-FILES, but she’s fallen off my radar in recent years. It’s nice to see her show up in something cool like TRISTRAM SHANDY with Steve Coogan, but I’d love to see her as the lead in something great.

Or barring that, in a really cool X-FILES sequel.

Is that really happening? The rumors are certainly flying, and then today... well, check this out:

Hi Harry,

Last Thursday, Gillian Anderson posted a rebuttal to recent reports that she 'hated' working on The X-Files to her official website.

At the end of the post, she says (re David Duchovny):

"Do I imagine that when we do the film together we won't hate each other for a few hours during the filming? No. We will. Vehemently. As David waits patiently, again and again for the hair dryer to calm my frizzy hair between takes so it matches the beginning of the scene... he will undoubtedly be thinking "what the hell was I thinking agreeing to shoot with her f****** frizzy hair again?". But we will also love each other and laugh with each other and pull pranks on each other and bug each other like we did for nine years."

Nowhere else does she refer to "the film", but surely this must be X-Files 2? It's clear she's talking about something in the future, not the original film.

If you use this, please call me 'Tish's Little Helper' :)

What’s she up to in the meantime? Well, she made a film that we’ve actually published a few other reviews for. I don’t recall the others being quite this negative, but this guy certainly argues his case well:

Hey Harry and general AICN folks,

Here's a review of the seemingly UK-only revenge movie Straightheads(it's a gang term for civilians who live outside the life of crime).If you ask me it should stay that way, but it might be of interest to you guys in the States because Gillian Anderson gets naked in it. Very naked. Perhaps one for the Netflix queue?

Hope you can use, have a nice weekend chaps

Ali

Before the opening credits of Straightheads roll, a National Lottery logo appears and fittingly flicks two fingers up at you. Funded by the National Lottery UK Film Council, this is a horrible waste of British money that would have been better spent building public toilets or car parks. When I buy my Lucky Dip ticket every week, I trust my £1 goes to a good cause – if Straightheads is where my money is going, then consider my gambling habit well and truly curbed.

Adam (Danny Dyer, perhaps best known as Kent Paul in GTA Vice City in the States) is a CCTV installation boy who ends up romantically entangled with one of his posh customers, Alice (Gillian Anderson). After watching her strip off seductively in Glorious Quicktime, Adam and Alice embark on an unlikely relationship that sees her whisk him off to a high society party where he's laughed at by superior socialites. Driving home on a country road, the pair end up crashing after a little bit of auto-erotica and are surprised to find that the Jeep they just cut up has caught up with them. Out pile some country rubes who beat seven shades of shit out of Adam and brutally rape Alice. No one violates Agent Scully and gets away with it, so the couple form a poorly thought-out plan to execute a bloody revenge.

Nothing about Straightheads manages to convince. The relationship between Dyer and Anderson is as awkward and stilted as you might imagine; we're supposed to believe that the chalk-and-cheese pairing of Cockernee geezer and posh totty is more than just a bunk-up, but there's a serious lack of chemistry and very little indication as to why the still strikingly attractive Anderson would be interested in a wimpy twat like Dyer. Their cringeworthy scenes of flirtation are like fingers down a blackboard ("So… would you like to come to a party with me?") and if Anderson was trying to pull off the role of a dangerous, edgy seductress, then perhaps the scene where she comically squats next to her car and takes a big steaming piss is a tad unnecessary. You'll see more convincing relationships on Friends.

By far the most interesting roles should be those of the rapists – what drives a group of middle-aged men to roam country roads looking for fresh meat? Unfortunately, Straightheads is so concerned about racing to the finish line, it forgets about the who, what, where, when and why and renders the entire film impotent as a result. Ralph Brown (Withnail and I's Danny the Dealer) would appear to be the ringleader but is portrayed as a cackling maniac with no motivation or obvious signs of life. Without a good villain, we're reduced to watching scene after scene of aimless, clichéd retribution that's been better handled a thousands times before. Straw Dogs, for example.

Straightheads is as shallow as a puddle and forgoes anything approaching realism in favour of OTT violence and needless gore. Tension is repeatedly pricked by the awful script and scenes of a sexual nature that are shoehorned into proceedings, like Dyer pathetically flogging his dead horse and several shots of Anderson's goods. Such titillation cannot paper over the cracks: there's no escaping the fact that the two main characters are two-dimensional and lack any real humanity.

The now infamous finale, complete with anal gun rape, sums up the film perfectly – a confusing, needless mix of sex and violence that makes no sense and is, quite frankly, a pain in the arse to watch. So, not only is the National Lottery housing terrorists and paying for illegal immigrants' haircuts, it's now funding bum-rapists too. What has this country come to?