Three is a film that stars the much gossiped about couple Billy Zane and Kelly Brook. It's a simple tale of three people marooned on an island, two of them are married and have an obvious age difference both physically and mentally, and the third member is a hot blodded young stud who has an eye for the ladies.

It's not hard to see where this story is going, although some of the plot is made quite interesting by outside influences, but there are some surprises.

The first surprise is Brook - odd that it feels strange calling her by her last name when she's become such an icon in Britain, feels like I should be calling her Kelly! - she can actually act and hold down a decent American accent. Yes, I know that may come as a shock to most, but she does pretty damn well, especially against the big personality of Zane.

However, that's not to say she's great, her limitations are obvious. In early scenes her accent pops in on a few occasions, but not really that noticeable, just as any Anglo-American might. Her performance was a little self conscious at times, and now and again you saw her go a little rigid, or not knowing where to put her arm in shot, etc. Again though, this doesn't really detract and is hardly noticeable. What is noticeable is her range of facial emotion, we had happy or amused, then bemused and\or confused, I found it hard sometimes to separate the latter two. Her anger wasn't really that believable because her face wasn't saying what her voice was. I think if she could work on that a little more she could surprise us all.

There's one more thing I have to say about her. She's looking more gorgeous than ever, and she's such a natural beauty. Some of her best moments are just looking off camera. Zane is a lucky man. He's also a good actor and a lot of fun on screen.

Zane undoubtedly gives us the best performance in the film. For the first half he goes about his business but you can just feel there's something bubbling underneath there. Then the second half comes and he totally changes, being driven mad by jealousy and voodoo, his character just flips and emotions being to run wild. This is one of the things Zane does best, madness. There's a moment when he looks like something out of Apocalypse Now, and although I giggled because it was a sudden leap in the story, he did play it very well, and seemingly for a few laughs too.

Juan Pablo Di Pace...wait a minute, I just grabbed his IMDB profile and was struck by the mention of a TV series he's been in...River City. Now that might not mean much to many of you, but to the British, and more so Scots among you, it's probably the worst soap on TV just now.

However, that aside, he does well in this role, although he does suffer from overacting when the character explodes. Perhaps that's meant to be with the fiery foreign temper, but a few times it just seems a little too much.

The story itself is not that bad, but what the whole voodoo premise does is cover for the characters making some bizarre and uncharacteristic choices, and so they exploit that to the maximum. Unfortunately this means that quite a few times you wonder why a character has done that, thought that there was no way they would do what they did, or just wondered if you missed ten minutes of character development. All of that can be easily explained with the power of voodoo.

For example it gets me that Jenny, the gorgeous wife, just switches allegiances all too easily. She doesn't sit in her husbands hut and wait for him to return to try and smooth things over, oh no, straight out and away. Wouldn't she at least give it a go? Then there's how she never seemed to grieve for her lost husband and friends when she was first deserted on the island, she just seemed to get on with it.

Personally I don't like that fallback and wished that the story had concentrated more on the reality of conflicting personalities stuck together, grating against each other, and slowly growing to hate each other. However, that's what they did and it does give them a nice get out clause throughout.

The conflict between the two males is well played and escalated though, and you can feel the tension and recognise the steps that lift it up each time. However the night fight scene is a bit confusing, and the tussle shows the characters switch places suddenly, and this is something that can't be explained by the voodoo, that is bad continuity and editing.

The dialogue is sometimes a bit clunky and out of place too, and again is another place which made me think we were missing some character development, but yet again this could be dropped under the voodoo banner. It's really difficult to judge if they meant the feeling to be that they were making irrational decisions due to supernatural influences, or that they were genuinely behaving bizarrely...or perhaps just a heavy edit or poor filmmaking at the end of the day. It's such a hard choice with this film.

However, when all is said and done, it's perhaps not edge of your seat psychological thriller material, but it is a good film and good performances all round, particularly from Zane and the surprising Brook. I had thought this was a cheap vehicle for their relationship, but actually they appear very natural onscreen and not at all hindered by their outside feelings when acting together.

Oh, and the setting is gorgeous, as is Brook. I just wish that the beach sex scene wasn't all soft focus and lapping waves...that just made it all seem so twee.

IMDB Film Details
Edinburgh Ocean Terminal Vue Cinema