‘Beautiful Creatures’ Tries Hard to Thrill and Tickle

“Beautiful Creatures” purports to be set in present-day Glasgow, Scotland, but it looks instead to be some paranoid dreamscape from the bruised psyche of a 1970s feminist separatist. In the thuggish, Stanley Kowalskian universe of this so-called “comic thriller,” all men are corrupt sociopaths who beat women and nurture their own violent tendencies through heroin and pornography.

The only sympathetic male in sight is Pluto, a very put-upon dog who must absorb some of the abuse heaped upon his owner Dorothy (Susan Lynch) by her nasty boyfriend Tony (Iain Glen). No sooner has Dorothy escaped a thrashing from Tony than she stumbles upon another creep, Brian (Tom Mannion), in the act of pounding his girlfriend, Petula (Rachel Weisz). Dorothy takes action, knocking the guy over the head with a steel pipe. The women drag him up to Petula’s bathtub; he’s still alive--until he falls out of the bathtub and dies.

Petula and Dorothy are here to prove that gorgeous women can beat men at their own sorry game. Before you can say “Thelma and Louise,” they set up the dead man’s disappearance to look like a kidnapping so they can take the ransom money and run. Why turn yourself in to the police when you can do something really asinine instead?

As “Beautiful Creatures” charges down its tedious and unfunny path, the women become entangled with a detective and a concerned relative who prove to be as scurrilous as the boyfriends they are escaping from. The only genuine puzzle presented by the film is how it ever made it across the ocean from Britain, a nation we generally turn to for literacy and cleverness. Why should the Arts Council of England squander its resources on the sort of crummy crime comedy that Hollywood can effortlessly churn out with more money and even less taste?

* Rating R for strong violence and sexuality, drug use and language. Times guidelines: An exercise in bad taste throughout.

‘Beautiful Creatures’

Susan Lynch: Dorothy

Iain Glen: Tony

Rachel Weisz: Petula

Tom Mannion: Brian McMinn

A Snakesman production for DNA Films, in association with Universal Pictures International and The Arts Council of England, released by Universal Focus. Director Bill Eagles. Producer Alan J. Wands, Simon Donald. Screenplay by Simon Donald. Cinematographer James Welland. Editor Jon Gregory. Costume designer Trisha Biggar. Production designer Andy Harris. Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes.

At selected theaters.