w Delta z (2007)

Director:

Tom Shankland

Writer:

Clive Bradley (screenplay)

Release Date:

2007 (Ireland)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

Would you kill the one you love to save yourself from death?

Plot:

A calculating killer coerces a detective to pay for his previous mistakes.

Plot Keywords:

Police | Police Car | Electrical Burn | Female Police Officer | Dead Body

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Barbara Adair	...	Alice Jackson
Stellan Skarsgård	...	Eddie Argo
Peter Ballance	...	Trucker (as Peter Balance)
Selma Blair	...	Jean Lerner
Melissa George	...	Helen Westcott
Tom Hardy	...	Pierre Jackson
Sally Hawkins	...	Elly Carpenter
Lauren Hood	...	Sharon Williams
Caroline Lee-Johnson	...	Gillian (as Caroline Lee Johnson)
'Sean' Brian Jordaan	...	Jamal Osman / Khaled Osman (as Brian 'Saen' Jordan)
Paul Kaye	...	Gelb
Sheila Kerr	...	Alison Lerner
Michael Liebman	...	Wesley Smith
Joshua O'Gorman	...	Dominic Carpenter
Alibe Parsons	...	Miss Allaway

Also Known As:

Waz (UK) (informal title) (USA) (working title)
Devil's Algebra (UK) (working title)
The Killing Gene (USA) (DVD title)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong brutal violence including a rape, gruesome images and pervasive language.

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Australia:R | New Zealand:R18 | Ireland:18 | Sweden:15 | USA:R | UK:18 | Finland:K-18 | Netherlands:16 | Singapore:M18 | USA:Unrated (DVD rating) | Norway:15 (TV rating) | Germany:18

Filming Locations:

Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, UK

Company:

Vertigo Films

Goofs:

Continuity: After Gelb is arrested, the whiteboard shows the full, unmarked Price equation. In the next shot, the equation is marked up in red.

Quotes:

Gelb: [explaining the W Delta Z equation] The selfish gene...
Helen Westcott: Go on.
Gelb: You think a bird will sacrifice itself for the flock, or a bee will sting a predator and die for the hive? How noble. How heroic.
Helen Westcott: And it isn't true?
Gelb: No, it isn't true. Suppose you put a snake into the cage and one of the monkeys is a hero - yeah, lures it away, lets it eat him. But it's not heroism. It's not selflessness. Forget the bees. Forget the monkey. The monkey's nothing. Just think what the monkey's made of.
Helen Westcott: What's that?
Gelb: Genes. The monkey is just the gene's way of making copies of itself. All these monkeys, they're all related. They all share their genes. So the monkey dies. What do the genes care? That's what Price proved. There's no altruism in nature. It's just genes looking after themselves. Ha.

Movie Connections:

References Day of the Woman (1978)

Not really that good..

I give 5 stars as this is one of those films that you can watch and then throw away. It's not bad but it's not good. I don't think it's the sort of film where you would pull it out of your DVD collection every couple of months to watch.

I'm not sure what type of 'film' was used but the director went for (what looked like to me) HD hand-held cams. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean Cloverfield 'all over the show' sort of filming but rather the film print it's self. I suppose this gives the film it's 'gritty' look, which I can appreciate sometimes but for this movie it just made the production look cheap. If it weren't for the famous faces you'd be forgiven for thinking you may be watching a lower budget movie.

As for the film itself....we've seen such ideas already done with 'Saw' and 'untraceable'. There's no real new context here to give a fresh light to the story. The acting was fine and I have no problem with the direction....I just wasn't drawn into the film in any way. It was difficult to hold my interest or really care about the characters on screen.

I don't really give insight into the 'story' of a film when I review as others do that better but as a film goer I'd say that this is a throw-away film.....the sort you'd rent or watch to pass some time. As I've said before, it's not a bad film....but it isn't great. Slap bang in the middle