“That’s saying something”: the 2010 movie Danny Dyer called “the biggest pile of shit I have ever done”
Danny Dyer isn’t exactly the first person that comes to mind when we’re asked to name a great actor with an impressive filmography…but don’t worry, he’s aware of that.
The actor got his start in a pretty well-received film, to be fair, playing Moff in the classic Welsh acid-house comedy Human Traffic. Known for his phrase “Nice one, bruvva!”, his performance felt like a promising start to his career, but soon, it was parts in sports movies like Mean Machine and The Football Factory, as well as tough guy roles, that became his preference – many of which have dated rather poorly.
There have always been glimpses of greatness throughout his career, like when he appeared in the Oscar-winning short film Wasp by Andrea Arnold, but more often than not, you can find Dyer in a low-budget British film with a terrible poster.
Just look at the artwork for Malice in Wonderland and Doghouse, two of his 2009 projects, they look like they’ve been edited by a GCSE graphic design student, and were probably made by GCSE film studies students, too.
Dyer has found more success as an Eastenders regular, as well as through presenting documentaries like Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Men, in which he can simply be himself. At the end of the day, he’s a rather unconventional national treasure who, when it boils down to it, isn’t all that different from one of your dad’s mates that you might see at the pub. Or one that might attempt to sell you a dodgy fire stick.
But out of all of the questionable movies that Dyer has starred in over the years, there are a few he considers to be the worst, without a shadow of a doubt. Dyer knows that his filmography isn’t the height of cinematic excellence, but he’s OK with that. Not everyone is Daniel Day-Lewis.
“I’ll be the first to admit I’ve made some shit films, but 7lives is fucking awful,” he once wrote on Twitter. The 2011 fantasy drama certainly wasn’t a hit, because who wants to watch a film made on a £1,800 budget where Dyer swaps bodies with several people, including a criminal and a rockstar? That does sound as entertaining as it does terrible, to be fair.
Yet there’s one that he thinks is even worse. “I ain’t gonna lie. [Just For The Record] is the biggest pile of shit I have ever done and that’s saying something,” he wrote. The movie flew so far below the radar that it doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page, but according to IMDb, the movie, directed by Steven Lawson, was a mockumentary about the film industry that also featured appearances from Rik Mayall, Karen Anderson, and Pete Morgan.
There’s really very little about the film to be found online, and if that’s not proof of how bad it is, then I don’t know what is…at least Dyer can be honest about the fact that he has appeared in some rubbish – it’s a shame that he doesn’t seem to learn, though, because 2025’s Marching Powder was a cinematic abomination.
