| High Heels and Low Lifes | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Mel Smith |
| Produced by | Uri Fruchtmann Barnaby Thompson |
| Screenplay by | Kim Fuller |
| Story by | Kim Fuller Georgia Pritchett |
| Starring | Minnie Driver Mary McCormack Kevin McNally Michael Gambon Darren Boyd |
| Music by | Charlie Mole |
| Cinematography | Steven Chivers |
| Editing by | Chris Blunden |
| Studio | Touchstone Pictures Fragile Films |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista International |
| Release date(s) | 16 July 2001 |
| Running time | 86 min |
| Country | United Kingdom United States |
High Heels and Low Lifes is a 2001 action comedy-drama film starring Minnie Driver, Mary McCormack, Kevin McNally, Mark Williams, Danny Dyer and Michael Gambon. It was directed by Mel Smith and written by Kim Fuller and Georgia Pritchett. The film was remade in Bollywood as Paisa Vasool starring Manisha Koirala and Sushmita Sen.
The film follows the story of two women living in London, Shannon (Minnie Driver) and Frances (Mary McCormack), attempting to con a group of gangsters, led by Kerrigan (Michael Gambon) and Mason (Kevin McNally), into giving them £1,000,000 after they overhear a conversation between gang members during a local bank heist. The idea is that the money would later be used to fund the purchase of a large amount of expensive hospital equipment for the hospital where Shannon works as an overworked and underpaid nurse. Frances, a failing American actress who has resorted to auditioning for children's cartoons, wants the money so that she can get out of the rut she believes she is stuck in, and also because she wants a Mercedes to replace her aging Pontiac Firebird.
Throughout the course of the film, the women threaten the mobsters in order to persuade them to give them a cut of the heist money. As the film progresses, the danger the women are in becomes more obvious, and just as it appears that they are out of their depth when Frances' car is blown up and Shannon is almost kidnapped, they successfully break into Mason's house and confront him and one of his gang. A mass shoot-out occurs after it becomes clear that the girls have stolen all of Mason's guns and have bagged all the money. They manage to get away in the gang members' Porsche Boxster with the bags of money. The hospital equipment is delivered to Shannon's hospital anonymously, as Shannon and Frances look on. They then drive off into London in the Mercedes CLK that they bought with some of the money, happy that they have done the right thing.
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