Director Stephen Frear's Dirty Pretty Things is a noirish thriller/drama/romance with enough elements of the bizarre intertwined into its storyline to keep it interesting even when it shouldn't be.

Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Okwe, a Nigerian citizen wanted in his homeland for the murder of his wife now living as an illegal alien in London, England. He spends his days working as a cab driver and playing doctor to the company's syphilitic employees and his nights as a desk clerk at a fancy hotel. This doesn't leave much time for sleep, but he's okay with that and is constantly taking an herbal stimulant to combat his sleep deprivation.

Senay (Audrey Tautou of Amelie) is a Turkish Muslim refugee living in England under the close watchful eye of the English immigration police who remind her that because of her status she is not allowed to work or accept rent. Well, she does it anyway – she works as a maid at the hotel were Okwe is also employed under the table, and she rents space on the couch in her small apartment to him as well.

One night while on the job at the hotel, a prostitute named Juliette tells Okwe that he might need to check one of the rooms as the toilet is clogged. When he removes the blockage from the toilet, he finds that it's actually a human heart. When he takes it to his boss, s sleaze ball Spaniard named Juan (played perfectly by Sergi Lopez), he finds that Juan is actually running an illegal organ smuggling ring in which illegal immigrants are given well faked passports in exchange for their kidneys.

When the immigration police close in on Okwe and Senay, suspicious of her working and renting to him, she decides that she'll sell Juan one of her kidney's in exchange for a passport and flee the country to go be with her cousin in New York. but Okwe was a doctor back in Nigeria before he fled, and he knows of the risks involved in this type of surgery when it's done by amateurs in hotel rooms rather than by trained medical professionals in the safety of a hospital. Armed with this knowledge he tries to dismay her and come to terms with the fact that they are starting to fall in love with each other.

While the box copy on the keepcase plays the film up as a sexual thriller, it's really not that at all and the little sex that is in the film is far from erotic – it's cold and dispassionate and simply a means to an end for the characters involved. What it is, is essentially a character study based around some realistic circumstances and suspenseful set pieces that keep you involved in the story based on Frear's rock solid direction and strong performances from all the major players involved.

The only thing I knew about Ejiofor was that he had a small role in Spielberg's Amistad but having seen him carry this film from start to finish and make it look easy, I'd be keen to seek out more of his work. His Okwe is a believable and sympathetic character and it's to Ejiofor's credit that he's able to pull it off, even during some of the films weaker moments. Tautou is both charming and tragic in her role and brings a sense of legitimate sadness to her part that a lesser actress wouldn't have been able to manage – when she's sexually abused by a sweatshop worker, it's grueling and even horrifying, rather than cheap exploitation.

Frears keeps the movie looking good from start to finish and the film retains a unique visual style for its duration with some fluid camera movements and interesting lighting. Even when the plot meanders a bit, which it does towards the end as it treads dangerously close to becoming too sugary for its own good it at least looks great and the ending absolves ultimately absolves itself.

Video:

Miramax presents Dirty Pretty Things in a very solid 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Colors are vibrant and realistic, compression artifacts are virtually non-existent, and aside from a couple of specks on the print that show up here and there (and only in very minor instances at that), the only noticeable defect is a teeny tiny bit of edge enhancement in a couple of scenes.