Editing Dirty Weekend (1993 film) (section)

==Critical reception==
''Halliwell's Film Guide'' described ''Dirty Weekend'' as "a sleazy little tale of a female vigilante, directed and acted in a perfunctory, over-emphatic manner".<ref>Leslie Halliwell and John Walker ''Halliwell's Film Guide''. HarperPerennial, 1996 (p.316).</ref> Sheila Johnston's assessment of ''Dirty Weekend'' was also negative: "no window-dressing can hide the fact that an aura of indelible naffness hangs over the movie...the screenplay is hewn out from Helen Zahavi's over-written novel with no concessions to the way people actually speak".<ref name="sj">{{cite news | title=It was a Dirty Job | first=Sheila | last=Johnston | newspaper=The Independent | date=29 October 1993 | page=26}}</ref> Johnston argued ''Dirty Weekend'' was inferior to other female revenge films such as ''[[Ms. 45]]'' and ''[[Lipstick (1976 film)|Lipstick]]''.<ref name="sj" /> Johnston also criticised the making up of the white actor Richardson with "[[Racial brownface|brownface]]" to portray a Middle Easterner.<ref name="sj" /> ''[[The Observer]]'' review claimed ''Dirty Weekend'' has "a certain factitious topicality", but went on to state "a work so bad in every way, and mostly risibly so, cannot be the focus of serious controversy".<ref>{{cite news | title=Dirty Weekend | newspaper=The Observer| date=31 October 1993 | page=4}}</ref> Brian Case, reviewing the film for ''[[Time Out (magazine)|Time Out]]'', dismissed ''Dirty Weekend'' as "pretty rotten", and criticised Winner's direction, stating it resembled "out-takes from local cinema advertising, which distances the audience from the material and indeed from wakefulness itself".<ref>"Dirty Weekend", in ''Time Out Film Guide 2011'', Time Out, London, 2010. {{ISBN|1846702089}} (p. 274).</ref>