After a good meal, there's nothing that I like more than a nice breath mint. Sure, I enjoy the food I've just eaten, but a mint afterwards makes things complete. But, every once in a while you get a mint that has no flavor whatsoever. This is known as a "dead cert" and that's what the movie Dead Cert is about. Hold on, my wife is saying something. Apparently I'm mistaken about this movie and need to go watch it.

Dead Cert takes place in modern London, where we meet Freddy Frankham (Craig Fairbrass), a gangster who dabbles in unlicensed boxing but now spends his time preparing his nightclub along with his business associate, Eddie Christian (Dexter Fletcher). Freddy also focuses on his girlfriend, Jen (Lisa McAllister). Opening night at the club is a big success, until Eddie brings in Dante Livenko (Billy Murray), a Romanian businessman who is interested in the club. Livenko proposes a wager to Freddy -- a boxing match between his man and Freddy's brother-in-law to be, Dennis (Danny Midwinter). When this goes awry, Freddy's world begins to collapse and he decides that he will do anything to keep his nightclub. However, Freddy and his friends loon learn that Livenko and his cohorts aren't human.

So, if you haven’t figured it out by now, the problem with Dead Cert is that it’s not very original. We get elements of the Guy Ritchie movies, From Dusk til Dawn, and the Underworld films. From beginning to end, each scenes feel like something that we’ve seen before. Along with the stereotypical gangsters, we get the “crazy old man who knows the truth but no one will listen to” played by Steven Berkoff. The only semi-original elements come during the finale and while they’re interesting, they are far too late.

While the lack of originality doesn’t help, the movie’s structure makes things worse. Again, Dead Cert apes From Dusk til Dawn by pretending not to be a vampire movie for nearly an hour. This means that we must sit through a sub-par gangster movie all of that time. None of this is interesting and if I didn’t know from the plot description that vampires were going to arrive at some point, I would have probably turned the movie off. The movie tries to create drama by adding specific elements to the relationship between Frank and Jen, and elaborating on the connection between Frank and Eddie, but the characters are interchangeable and we never feel any connection to them.

The only saving grace in Dead Cert is the acting, oddly enough. Fairbrass has the looks of someone who would usually play the heavy, but he does a good job of bringing emotion to the role of Frank. Dexter Fletcher (whose hair appears to be in a different movie) also brings life to his performance, and he’s very believable as a slimy businessman. Their valiant efforts can’t save Dead Cert from being mediocre at best. The mixing of gangster and vampires isn’t a bad idea, but the movie rides on the coattails of other, better movies, revealing a film with no bite.

Dead Cert features a night club which looks suspiciously an empty building with a stage in it on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Shout! Factory. The movie has been letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 20 Mbps. The image is very sharp and clear, showing no overt grain and no defects from the source material. The colors look very good and the image is never overly dark or bright. Given the low-budget nature of the movie, I was very impressed by how good this transfer looks. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 5.0 Mbps. The track provides clear sound effects. However, the dialogue is difficult to understand at times. I had to turn the volume up higher than average in order to hear the speakers. Making matters worse, most of the characters speak with very thick Cockney accents. Despite the fact that they were speaking English, I had a very hard time understanding the dialogue at times and the Disc contains no subtitle options. It’s surprising that a Blu-ray would be surprised without subtitles these days. That aside, the stereo effects are nicely done, as we get a sense of sounds coming from off-screen. The surround sound effects show off the music in the nightclub and the subwoofer gets active during the finale.

The extras on the Dead Cert Blu-ray Disc are kicked off by an AUDIO COMMENTARY from Producer Jonathan Sothcott and actors Billy Murray, Craig Fairbrass, and Lisa McAllister. "Making of Dead Cert" (30 minutes) is a fairly in-depth featurette which is a combination of on-set footage and interviews. We hear from the director, producer, and primary cast who talk about the story, the characters, and the production. In addition, we are treated to some "fly on the wall" video from the set to see the scenes being shot. The piece also looks at the stunts and the makeup effects. The final extra is the TRAILER for the film.