1. Quentin - Dead Babies (2000)
Britain has always had a knack for producing great black comedies, from Kind Hearts and Coronets and Withnail & I to more modern efforts like Four Lions. But for every great British comedy that hits the mark, there are more than a few which fail on every conceivable level. While it can't quite claim the notoriety accorded to Sex Lives of the Potato Men, Dead Babbies is just as formless and despair-inducing. Dead Babies (released as Mood Swingers in the US) is based on the novel of the same name by Martin Amis. Nominally a parody of Agatha Christie novels, it depicts a 'lost weekend' at an English country house, where a group of individuals gather and indulge in all manner of sexual debauchery, heavy drinking and illegal drug-taking. Despite its modern touches, it's a tackily 1970s story of jaded hippies and posh hedonists who all deserve to be slapped with a wet fish. Dead Babies has no redeeming features whatsoever: its script is leaden and unfunny, the direction is aimless, the visuals are nauseating and the characters are all obxoniously dreadful. While it's hard to single out any of the cast as particularly awful, it's telling that Bettany could have missed the mark so much barely months after making Gangster No.1. It's a mean-spirited, miserable performance, and even if it's not all his fault, it's a shoe-in for the worst of his career. ---
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