This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

For a vampire movie, then the blood within the veins of "Dead Cert" was running awfully thin.The story is about a group of Romanian thugs who move in on a British club owner, wanting to take over his business. Settling it all with a single fight, the Romanian wins and they take over the club, soon turning everyone within into vampires. However, the British gangsters want their club back and take up the fight against the vampires.The storyline was fairly simple, and it was a good enough attempt at trying to mix the traditional vampire genre with the gangster genre, however, it took the movie more than halfway of its entire length before it got up in pace and started to become interesting. A sad fact, though, as I am sure many would fall through out of sheer boredom before that even happens. Then when the movie does pick up pace, it is nothing more than a mediocre experience.Not boasting a super big budget is reflected in the production value, although I will say that I found that aspect of the movie to actually be good. They made what they had work and clearly didn't need a big million dollar (or pound) budget. However, the movie was just weighed down by a slow pace and a fairly uninspiring story.As for the acting in the movie, well they did have some pretty good names on the cast list. Jason Flemyng (playing Chelsea Steve) had a small role, though his face always brings something great to a movie. Dexter Fletcher (playing Eddie Christian) also did a good job. Billy Murray (playing Dante Livenko) was the centerpiece of the movie, so to speak, with the most impressive role and performance. And lets not forget Steven Berkoff (playing Kenneth Mason) was also in the movie.For a vampire movie, then "Dead Cert" was below average. It just lacked that motivation, characters that had personalities and weren't just generic characters, and most importantly, it lacked that special dark, romantic feel to it that all good vampire movies have.So if you enjoy vampire movies, perhaps "Dead Cert" is not the best of choices, but still it did provide adequate entertainment, though I can honestly say that I will never watch it again, it just wasn't that appealing.

Not only does ex-East End wrong 'un turned legit entrepreneur Freddy 'Dead Cert' Frankham (Craig Fairbrass) lose his best friend in a bare-knuckle smack-down with ruthless head-case Yuvesky (Dave Legeno), but he also loses his livelihood, having unwisely staked his business (strip club The Paradise, which somehow boasts one of the best rooftop views in London) in a wager against Romanian gangster Dante Livenko (Billy Murray). More than a little miffed, Freddy and his dodgy mates decide to seek retribution for their pal's demise and take back what was theirs, only to discover that Livenko and his thugs are vampires.Brit gangster/vampire flick Dead Cert hardly explores new ground, essentially being a fairly low-budget Cockney retread of 90s Tarantino/Rodriguez genre mash-up From Dusk Till Dawn. But despite scoring low in the originality department, the film still manages to be reasonably entertaining enough nonsense for its duration thanks to its colourful collection of criminals performed by a veritable Who's Who of affordable London actors. The film's splendid cast includes Dexter Fletcher and Jason Flemyng, counts no less than three ex-Eastenders stars amongst its number (Murray, Fairbrass, and Ricky Grover), and also features the likes of Steven Berkoff, Perry Benson ('Dad' from Mum & Dad), and Danny-bloody-Dyer, making this film more Cockney than a pearly king and queen eating jellied eels in Bethnal Green. Watching these guys do their thing is a blast.Where the film doesn't work quite so well is in pulling off the awkward genre switchover from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels style gangster shenanigans to vampire flick: the change comes way too late in the day and is all too sudden, leaving viewers no time to adjust to the shift and giving the film little opportunity to make the most of its horror aspect. Other negatives include a lack of nudity from the busty beauties who work in the Paradise (for a strip club, there ain't much skin on show) and Billy Murray not bothering to adopt a Romanian accent (the makers were obviously so pleased to have him on board they wrote an excuse for this into the script). A few juicy stakings and a unique solution to the vampire problem go some way to compensating for these less than perfect elements in the film's finalé.

This movie wasn't entirely terrible but it certainly won't be embracing my DVD player for quite a while. It semi works as a gangster flick, in brief a rival gang tries to take over an established patch. This has worked in the past and could have possibly worked now. Considering the cast of British stars that appear in it, Craig Fairbrass, jason Flemyng and Dexter fletcher to name a few.But then... The vampire bit seems to pop up. It feels like they couldn't really pick a decent way for the movie to go and decided it would be a good idea to throw a couple of bloodsuckers in. The culminating scene near the end of the movie becoming like a poor mans from dusk till dawn.It falls slightly short of a gangster flick and slightly short of a horror flick it's one of those that I'm sure you will be on the fence about. The only real qualm i had with thee movie is billy murray's romanian character... Without a hint of a romanian accent Try the film by all means but don't get your hopes up to high.

I was a little surprised to see how low rating this movie had here at IMDb. I mean, it's not the greatest movie I've ever seen, but it's not the worst either. It has a bunch of cool actors (Craig Fairbrass is stone cold cool) and a fun storyline. The vampires are kind of lame, but not more so than in every other vampire movie ever made. The action has a different flavour than all the boring big time action/horror movies, but to me that's just a plus. The directing feels a little disjointed at times, but nothing too bad.All in all, I recommend this to anyone who likes British gangster and/or horror flicks. Just don't go in expecting too much.