When our hero has been beaten up, and in his mind he finds himself in these "other" universes it would have been much more obvious and better to have had Danny Dyer as himself in these other lives, but as other actors in these other lives are playing him, for me this entire film was confusing.

Unless ive missed something, I think im making a fair and obvious point.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Tom (Danny Dyer) is a married man with kids who's been tempted with an offer of a better life by a seductive new client. On his way home, he finds himself accosted by a group of hoodies who chase and mug him, leaving him battered within an inch of his life. As his existence hangs in the balance, he finds himself living out in his head a series of different lives, including one of his assailants, a homeless man, a rock star and a boxer. As crunch time comes on his life, he must choose whether he prefers one of his made up lives or his real one.

Over thirty years ago, despite his powerful, imposing presence in the film Scum, it would probably have been hard for anyone to imagine Ray Winstone, with his working class background and heavy London accent, could have gone on to conquer Hollywood. But he did, and in more recent times, he appeared to have a successor in the shape of Danny Dyer, who burst onto the scene with force in The Football Factory, and also carried WC roots and a heavy London brogue. But, at his current rate, it seems the success Winstone went on to enjoy will continue to elude him, as he makes an ever increasing string of low budget, low grade straight to DVD entries, the latest of which is this ambitious but hopelessly muddled and unsuccessful 'converging tales' piece.

7 Lives has an intriguing concept, but somehow it manages to go off the rails almost as soon as it's begun, with a confused and meandering story that fails to make much sense or relevance in relation to it's central protagonist or to the audience. Dyer himself seems to be feeling the script's weakness and turns in one of his more wooden performances, which when matched with the vocabulary he's asked to read out with his deep London accent, is just asking for trouble. By less than about half way in, it's completely lost your interest and the story just drags on feeling more and more nonsensical and flat as it goes on.

It seems a problem with British actors is their inability to refuse work, and in Dyer's case that seems to be tenfold. One only hopes he lands with an agent that can get him to see sense and separate the wheat from the chaff before it's too late. **

I watched this movie yesterday. Not a bad movie at all.

After the first 10 minutes or so, it catches your attention. In fact, you'll be asking yourself 'what is going on?' throughout most of the movie. It is a little confusing, perhaps watching it a second or a third time would answer a few questions. But I think (and most viewers too) I won't spend more time with, it is worth watching once, not more.

Different characters repeat the same phrases in different occasions, I couldn't help but compare this to 'Cloud Atlas', only in a different (much lower) level. Perhaps this adds some interest to the story, I think this makes it a little more confusing. See for yourself.

Overall, '7 Lives' is not a masterpiece, far from it, but it is watchable - if you have 99 minutes to spend.