Saw this at the London Film Festival premiere last night. It's a well-made and engaging low-budget crime film, with excellent acting and music. Neil Maskell and David Hayman give dependably good performances. It's very much along the lines of Dead Man's Shoes and Kill List, although lacking the flair, originality and imagination of those classics. Hard geezer seeks revenge, with over-the-top violence and nasty, humourless working-class gangsters. A grim and dour tone. Some nicely choreographed stabbings and gunshots. It's nothing new, but it does it satisfactorily and holds your attention.
It's a great shame then that the film is almost fatally marred by a bizarre and poorly thought-through conclusion that had to make me wonder why not a single person on the team of this production said 'um, hang on a minute, are we really going with this ending..?'.
It's just wrong for the tone of the film.
I can see what they were aiming for, as it's been done before in one of the best crime films ever made, but here they mess it up by not setting it up correctly, and in the process almost wreck a perfectly workable film.
All in all, despite this flaw, this is worth a watch, as it is undeniably entertaining.
It's a great shame then that the film is almost fatally marred by a bizarre and poorly thought-through conclusion that had to make me wonder why not a single person on the team of this production said 'um, hang on a minute, are we really going with this ending..?'.
It's just wrong for the tone of the film.
I can see what they were aiming for, as it's been done before in one of the best crime films ever made, but here they mess it up by not setting it up correctly, and in the process almost wreck a perfectly workable film.
All in all, despite this flaw, this is worth a watch, as it is undeniably entertaining.