(2002) "There is nothing so dangerous as a virtuous man," Guo Yi (Benedict Wong) says to his friend Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor). They play chess at the hospital where Guo gets medicines for Okwe, who drives a taxi during the day and works at the Baltic Hotel's front desk at night. Among other ailments, medicines are for the venereal disease the other African taxi drivers have contracted.

An illegal on the lam in London ("a weird city" in Guo's opinion), Okwe was a doctor in Lagos, Nigeria; Senay Gelik (Audrey Tautou), a Turkish Muslim whose dream is to get to America where her cousin resides, is incredulous when Okwe, who also cooks and irons for her, tells her he once lived in New York City (studying medicine) and left. She works as a maid at the same hotel where Juliette (Sophie Okonedo) also uses a room at night for her johns.

This original screenplay by Steven Knight, directed by Stephen Freers, dramatizes the raw but riveting underworld of illegal aliens and the black market in kidneys.

"Hotel business is about strangers," Sneaky Juan (Segi Lopez) says to Okwe after he finds a human heart blocking the toilet in room 510. "Don't concern yourself with who comes and goes," the doorman cautions Okwe.

A pair of immigration-enforcement agents barge into Senay's apartment looking for incriminating evidence of someone living with her; she's not supposed to be employed either. After quitting at the Baltic, she goes to work for an Indian in his textile sweatshop; he demands oral sexual favors for not turning her in.

When Sneaky discovers that Okwe can perform surgery, he tells the African of an eight-year-old girl's need of a kidney, tempting him further with a large sum of money. Guo admits that were he more courageous, he would sacrifice a kidney to escape his circumstances. "For you and I there's only survival," Okwe harshly says to Senay, telling her of his own African story: "It's time you wake up from your stupid dream."

Desperate, willing to attempt almost anything, Senay goes to Sneaky, offering herself to his butchery in exchange for a passport. It's a passport to hell before her guardian angel appears: Okwe agrees to being her surgeon.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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