Review Category: Movie

In an ambiguous post-apocalyptic future (or alternative present), one man is surrounded only by women and children, with the little boys around him being trained to commit assassinations. This cult-leader-like figure is a million miles from Mad Max‘s Immortan Joe, his wives and War Boys and herds of souped-up vehicles hurtling across the Namibian desert. It may seem a strange comparison but there is something familiar between the Immortan cult of Fury Road and the Vincent Cassel-led cult in Partisan.

Cassel plays paternalistic leader, husband and father figure in this bleak new world. He collects women and children and invites them to stay with his group, away from the violence and danger of the outside world. In their little commune, we see Cassel’s idol-like Gregori through the impressionable eyes of 11-year-old Alexander, who has been raised by his mother and Gregori since he was a baby. He is one of many children who learns of the world only what Gregori tells him, and he is trained to commit frequent assassinations for his father figure, told he is keeping his extended family safe.

A new arrival to the commune in the form of troubled boy Leo begins to show the cracks in Gregori’s worldview. Leo’s defiance of Gregori opens Alexander’s eyes to the possibility of questioning authority and challenging the societal structure he has lived with since he was a baby.

To return to the world of Fury Road just once more, that film had strong female characters attempting to save themselves from the oppressive regime they found themselves a part of. Partisan offers an altogether bleaker, but seemingly happier world where the women characters completely fail to question the social order and accept gratefully the safe world they have been offered by Gregori. To be fair, Gregori is no grotesque Immortan, but he is just as dangerous a character, even if he is more discreet about it. To think that none of the mothers that surround him would raise concerns about their boys being sent to gun down strangers seems absurd. Writer/director Ariel Kleiman’s script is inspired by real stories of child assassins, and while its female characters are woefully neglected, the relationship between Gregori and Alexander is a fascinating and gripping one.

The casting aids this relationship fantastically, with Cassel magnetic as always; his charisma making him charming, while his eyes can turn sinister in a heartbeat. Equally impressive is Jeremy Chabriel, who has similarly piercing eyes and a steeliness and stillness that makes him intriguing to watch as he matures and changes through the story.

It’s a film that might have little time for its female characters, but in its isolationist, shoot-first worldview as espoused by Gregori, it shows the destructiveness of traditional masculine thinking and its clash of wills leads to a smart, understated, but powerful climax.

Kleiman uses his Australian and particularly Georgian locations brilliantly, so while it may not look as impressive as some other post-apocalyptic landscapes (hello again, Fury Road), it’s incredibly evocative and the ambiguity about the world created makes for intriguing and convincing viewing.

Partisan is an impressive feature debut; both expertly condemning its paternalistic society, but sadly lacking in a single interesting female character to take a stand to Cassel’s complex figure.

PARTISAN / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: ARIEL KLEIMAN / SCREENPLAY: ARIEL KLEIMAN, SARAH CYNGLER / STARRING: VINCENT CASSEL, JEREMY CHABRIEL, FLORENCE MEZZARA, NIGEL BARBER / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating:
 

“Continue watching”, the voice on the phone repeatedly tells the main character Parker in Observance. It’s a demand that no doubt director Joseph Sims-Dennett wants his audience to listen to as well, and for the most part Observance is just about odd and interesting enough to get you to obey. Whether the ending will satisfy all those who continue watching is another story.

After the death of his son and subsequent disintegration of his marriage, Parker (Lindsay Harris) accepts a surveillance job where he gets to play Rear Window as he watches a woman in her apartment from his own dingy hiding place across the street. Like James Stewart’s broken-legged busy body in Hitch’s best exploration of voyeurism, Parker soon starts to suspect the woman he is observing is in danger, particularly as her encounters with a man become increasingly violent-looking. Never leaving the apartment and haunted by nightmares of his dead child, Parker’s mind starts to unravel with hallucinations and physical sickness starting to set in.

Over seven days, Sims-Dennett sticks closely to Parker’s experience in the grimy, dark apartment. Parker is focussed on what is happening across the road, but the real horrors are in his head and manifested in the walls around him. With a keen sense of the surreal, the nightmarish visions and bodily decay that occur are what works best in Observance. With touches of both Davids Lynch and Cronenberg, and even one overly obvious nod to Un Chien Andalou, Sims-Dennett has studied his masters but never fully manages to capture the sensations of those he emulates.

In many ways, Observance is also more straightforward than surreal in places. Its dips into really odd moments of dream-like curiosity are punctured amongst more conventional thriller scenes. It’s a mix that never quite gels as well as it could, and some will find the weirder parts indulgent, while the suspense never builds to a truly chilling or edge-of-the-seat climax. There’s plenty of nightmarish imagery, but nothing for your fingernails to really worry about.

Still, Sims-Bennett nails the atmosphere, the sound design being impressively eerie. As Parker tries to listen in on his prey, the static and distorted volume from the icrophones across the street offer some tense audio surprises, particularly in one scene as Parker hears a voice speaking directly to him. There’s some decent jumps too, even if it takes a while to pick up momentum.

Lindsay Harris is solid as the gradually deteriorating protagonist, with some decent makeup and effects to help him really get churned through the wringer. He’s barely off screen until a last minute jarring shift of point-of-view for some of the final scenes, and is a watchable presence throughout whether spewing up litres of black goo or simply just observing as he’s supposed to do.

The result is a decent if not dazzling surreal horror thriller. Observance implores you to continue watching, but doesn’t quite fully reward its audience for doing so.

OBSERVANCE / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: JOSEPH SIMS-DENNETT / SCREENPLAY: JOSEPH SIMS-DENNETT, JOSH ZAMMIT / STARRING: LINDSAY FARRIS, STEPHANIE KING, BRENDAN COWELL, JOHN JARRATT / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Expected Rating: 5 out of 10

Actual Rating:
 

Israeli video artist Omer Fast unconventionally unravels the process of filmmaking in his first narrative feature, featuring a character who obsessively stages recreations of visions he has been seeing in his mind’s eye. Adapted from Tom McCarthy’s debut novel, Remainder has hints of Donnie Darko and more a little familiarity from the incredibly oddball Synecdoche, New York, but doesn’t quite hit the heights of either.

Rushing somewhere and pulling a black case behind him, an unnamed man (Tom Sturridge) is hit by falling debris from the London sky. After awaking from a coma and going through extensive rehabilitation, he discovers that he has been awarded with £8.5 million to keep quiet about the incident. He is plagued by strange visions of a building, a boy, an old woman and some cats on a roof, and decides to hunt down these elements in order to piece together the fragmented puzzle forming in his head. His recreations are handled by helper Naz and become more elaborate, including eventually the staging of a bank robbery.

Sturridge’s character becomes like a filmmaker, manipulating and directing these recreations from his mind, while an ever-expanding roster of ‘actors’ are employed to carry out the actions and scripts that he envisions. The surreal nature of his visions means he must dress extras in morph suits, have people repetitively play Chopin in the same building and an old lady constantly cook liver so that the smell will waft up to his apartment. He is obsessive in capturing the detail, repeating the process over and over again to the befuddlement of all others involved.

Omer Fast must be taking a pop at his own desire to get the world of his own imagination onto screens. You almost expect the camera to turn around to point at Fast’s crew who are all looking at him with the same perplexed expression on their faces as Sturridge’s character’s legion of actors. Fast clearly knows what he wants from a shot, from his script and from his actors, but whether the audience will go with him is a matter of personal taste.

Remainder is an odd film, full of interesting imagery and oddly amusing moments. At times, the control Sturridge’s character wishes to exert over others is more frightening than funny, but mostly its mesmerising to see him constructing and engineering his own reality. As the character plays God, the sense that he is simply directing a play with no audience but himself perhaps mirrors how Fast feels about making a movie. The repetition as the protagonist continues his rehearsals and grows happier with each ‘take’ also comments on our own comfort in the familiar.

With more and more cinematic universes and franchises expanding every day, Remainder is sure to stand out from the crowd. It may be about repeating yourself, but it is also about perfectionism and creating a personal vision. In that, Fast has certainly succeeded. With a trippy buzzing electric score and some wonderfully weird imagery, Remainder is a hypnotic, at times nightmarish, treat.

REMAINDER / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: OMER FAST / SCREENPLAY: TOM K. MCCARTHY / STARRING: TOM STURRIDGE, ED SPELEERS, ARSHER ALI, CUSH JUMBO / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating:
 

To those of us allergic to small talk, awkward silences and forced conversations, a dinner party invitation is enough to chill you right to the bone. Throw in an ex, her smug new lover, and memories of a tragedy that occurred at the location of the party and you have the ingredients for an evening full of ass-clenching discomfort.

Will and his current girlfriend receive ‘the invitation’ from Will’s ex-wife Eden and her new partner David. The evening of festivities will take place at Eden’s house, the house that Will and Eden used to share until they divorced years earlier following the tragic death of their son. Eden and David have been in Mexico for the past couple of years and invite a number of old friends for the gathering, as well as two new friends who none of the group know. Will is uncomfortable from the start, but it is only when Eden and David’s reason for inviting them all is gradually revealed that the evening becomes truly excruciating.

With nothing but a dimly lit and beautifully decorated house in the Hollywood hills and a small cast of characters, director Karyn Kusama turns The Invitation into a suspense-filled nightmare of dinner party anxiety and chilling ambiguity. For much of the film, Will is the odd man out, suspicious of his friends and playing detective throughout. While the others can relax, he is haunted by memories of the past, flashbacks triggered by the unfortunate, but meaningful choice of location. But it’s never quite clear how paranoid Will is, and as his friends become exasperated by his erratic behaviour, there is plenty of doubt as to whether it is he who is losing his mind.

The dinner party crawls along, as Kusama ratchets up the tension. There’s an abundance of exposition to kick things off, but as the true reasons for the soiree become clear, the evening becomes more interesting. As the night progresses it is revealed what Eden and David have been up to in Mexico, and despite all their smiles and soft voices they have more sinister intentions. Or maybe they just wanted to see their old friends. The Invitation keeps you guessing almost to the end, though the third act goes for the more obvious, more conventional choice.

Still, it doesn’t disappoint. Kusama invests everything from food and wine to mirrors and the glittering lights of houses in the Hollywood hills with tension. Amplified by the nerve jangling score, it all adds up with a terrific sense of unease and culminates with a not totally unexpected, but still satisfying climax. The last shot is also a killer punch line.

The screenplay from R.I.P.D. and Ride Along writer Phil Hay is much better than his career up until now would suggest. It could have used a little more subtlety at times, with an early accident involving a coyote and a car being a little too obvious perhaps, but the cast are all excellent, particularly Logan Marshall-Green as Will and the wonderfully creepy Tammy Blanchard as the ethereal Eden.

If you choose to accept The Invitation, you won’t regret it.

THE INVITATION / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: KARYN KUSAMA / SCREENPLAY: PHIL HAY, MATT MANFREDI / STARRING: MICHIEL HUISMAN, MICHELLE KRUSIEC, LOGAN MARSHALL-GREEN, EMAYATZY CORINEALDI / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:
  

They f**k you up, your Mum and Dad. Philip Larkin couldn’t have said it any better. The kids in Don’t Grow Up have been abused, abandoned and failed by their parents and find themselves trapped on an island where every adult has gone mad and is suddenly out for blood.

Six British teens who live in the St Madeline Youth Advice Care Centre on the remote island of Northlands have to battle for their lives when an outbreak of a mysterious disease leaves all the adults roaming the island like marauding zombies. All have issues as revealed in the video interviews that open the film. Some have hopes for the future, but others cannot see anything beyond their troubled pasts. Fergus Riordan is Bastian, a boy haunted by flashbacks to his abusive past, while Madeleine Kelly is Pearl, who simply wants Bastian to notice her.

When they awake in their facility one morning to realise that they have been abandoned yet again, they head out to the supermarket to grab some booze and find themselves in the middle of an age-related apocalypse. Hitting the road, they have to learn to survive in a world where there are no more rules and if the adults don’t beat them to death first, then the other feral kids wandering around may just nail them instead.

Don’t Grow Up has a great premise and starts out like it might be an entertaining mix of Attack the Block meets 28 Days Later. The kids are a damaged bunch; full of insecurities and raging against authority. Peer pressure pushes them to act out; the boys keen to exercise some form of control over their lives and the girls mostly just desperate for attention from the boys.

The gender stereotypes play into the idea that these kids are just adults in waiting, and there’s even a hint of paranoia as to whether any of the youths will be next to become snarling, murderous adults. Don’t Grow Up raises the question of what makes a child into an adult without offering any definite answers. However, the spectre of sex and responsibility hangs over the latter half of the film as the dwindling number of teens find themselves lumbered with younger children to look after.

There’s some cack-handed scripting on occasion, and while the direction is generally excellent in creating a brooding atmosphere it goes a little over-stylised for some flashback sequences. The cinematography captures the eerie deserted island beautifully, the changing scenery keeping the visuals gorgeous throughout. The flaws in the script would not be so noticeable either, but the wildly differing abilities of the principal cast.

There is some decent acting here, but unfortunately some of the better cast members are killed off earlier than others who make it to the final reel. None are helped by the weaker parts of the script, but Thierry Poiraud’s direction manages to keep the tone dark and moody, instead of descending into amateur dramatics.

Don’t Grow Up is a frustrating missed opportunity; a great premise and strong direction hampered by a cast and script ironically not quite mature enough to make the most of the material.

DON’T GROW UP / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: THIERRY POIRAUD / SCREENPLY: MARIE GAREL WEISS / STARRING: FERGUS RIORDAN, MADELEINE KELLY, MCKELL DAVID, DARREN EVANS / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:
 

Based on true events, Beeba Boys is the Thrill Gala film at the 2015 London Film Festival. Let’s hope this isn’t the best they have in store for the Thrill category this year.

Set in Vancouver amidst warring Sikh gangsters, Jeet is the leader of his crew of Beeba Boys and is intent on cutting in on the action of rival gangster Grewal’s turf. Dealing drugs and guns, while trying to maintain a normal family life in a suburban home with his mother, father and young son Peter, Jeet struggles to balance the two sides of his life, but is insistent on antagonising his enemy nonetheless.

Meanwhile, young wannabe gangster Nep has infiltrated Jeet’s gang in order to help Grewal bring him down, and Jeet further complicates his life by falling for a white woman who he must keep away from his traditional Punjabi family.

Desperate to be a hip take on Indo-gangsters in Canada, Beeba Boys tries too hard to be funny and fails at almost every turn. Critically for a thriller, it never gets any momentum going in order to actually do any thrilling. It wants to have the blasé attitude to casual violence of a Tarantino film, but then expects its audience to care about the characters in melodramatic household scenes between Jeet and his son, or Jeet and his Polish girlfriend.

It doesn’t help that Randeep Hooda as Jeet is a charisma vacuum and the script is full of tired clichés and increasingly ludicrous plot points as it attempts to crawl to a climax. Writer and director Deepa Mehta tries to liven things up with crunching guitars and Asian flavoured hip hop, not to mention so much dashing camera movement that it becomes tedious, but with a highly flawed script full of completely unlikeable characters, Beeba Boys just repeatedly misses the mark.

Every time it looks like there might be a fun action scene full of flying bullets, there is a tension-sapping scene of lifeless domestic drama. Every time Manny, the joker of Jeet’s group tries to inject some humour, the joke falls flat. The acting largely goes completely over the top and fails to bring the laughable (in all the wrong ways) script to life. It could have been an interesting look at a community underrepresented in film, but instead uses ridiculous gangster clichés to create a fairly loathsome depiction of Vancouver’s Sikh gangsters. Scorsese this isn’t, though Mehta tries her best with the kinetic camera.

Beeba Boys aims high with its influences worn proudly on its multi-coloured sleeves. It’s directed with some flair, looking and sounding like it should be a lot more fun than it is. The tone swings wildly from comic violence to stern titles that remind us that this is all based on true events, but with so much overacting and lifeless drama, it’s impossible to get behind these boys. If Beeba means ‘decent’ or ‘good’, they definitely chose the wrong title.

BEEBA BOYS / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: DEEPA MEHTA / RANDEEP HOODA, ALI MOMEN, SARAH ALLEN, WARIS AHLUWALIA / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating:

 

If Netflix’s first film production, the Idris Elba-starring drama Beasts of No Nation, is anything to go by, the increasingly popular phrase ‘Netflix and chill’ will soon become a thing of the past. This beautiful but harrowing look at African soldiers is anything but the kind of film you flick on to relax with on a Friday night.

Caught between the government troops who maintain the peace in his little village in an unnamed African country and the rebels outside, imaginative Agu (Abraham Attah) lives a happy life with his family, coming up with inventive ideas to make some money. When the threat of nearby rebel activity causes the men of the village to send the women and children away and to relative safety, Agu is left behind with his father and oldest brother. But when government forces start slaying those they suspect of being rebels, Agu soon finds himself alone and forced to fend for himself.

Just as it seems things couldn’t get any worse, Agu is picked up by a rebel Commandant (Idris Elba) and his group of young fighters. Agu is easily manipulated into becoming a soldier and seeking revenge on those who killed his family, but will he ever escape and find what is left of his family?

The fact that child soldiers even exist is a truly depressing stain on humanity. To see how a young, vulnerable boy can be so easily turned into something so vicious is not an easy watch. With only the presence of Idris Elba to draw in any crowds (and guarantee a decent budget), Beasts of No Nation is a frighteningly bleak dissection of how a child soldier is created.

Cary Fukunaga of True Detective fame pulls together a cracking cast of unknowns and never lets the charismatic Elba overshadow them or dominate the drama. His Commandant is a truly terrible creation, but despite his many horrendous acts he isn’t a bog standard bit of cardboard villainy. Far from it. This is a fully rounded character, father and tormenter to his lost souls… a man who is capable of exploiting the weakest, but is exploited and ultimately a casualty of war himself.

But even with Elba delivering an incredibly powerful performance, both inspiring to his troops and sickeningly abusive, this is newcomer Abraham Attah and Fukunaga’s film. As Agu, Attah is a revelation. From bright-eyed, creative and carefree child to stone-cold killer who may lose all hope of compassion, so much of the performance comes through his haunting eyes and increasingly tragic face.

Pulling double duty as director and cinematographer, Fukunaga captures the beauty of the country as the backdrop to some unflinching brutality. It’s bloody and its nasty, but with Dan Romer’s brilliant score, silhouettes caught in the sunlight and some stylistic flourishes (watch out for the steadicam shot following Agu as he raids a house) dotted throughout, Beasts of No Nation will reward repeat watches… if you can stomach it.

Ultimately it’s not without hope either. While Beasts of No Nation is far from easy viewing, it is powerful, urgent and heartbreaking filmmaking and a stark reminder of how boys become beasts in a war without end.

BEASTS OF NO NATION / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: CARY FUKUNAGA / STARRING: IDRIS ELBA, ABRAHAM ATTAH, AMA K. ABEBRESE, OPEYEMI FAGBOHUNGBE / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 9TH (SELECT CINEMAS), OCTOBER 16TH (NETFLIX)

Expecting Rating: 8 out of 10

Actual Rating:
 

Exiled to her backwater hometown for an unspecified indiscretion, Police Constable Rachel Heggie is about to start her first shift with new colleagues, picking up a mouthy teenage joyrider before she’s even made it to the station. However, after the arrival of an ominous man with no verifiable past who is placed in the cells along with the young criminal, a murderous doctor and a wife-beating teacher, things take a turn for the terrifying. It soon becomes clear that everyone is harbouring a dark secret and they are all about to descend into their own personal hell.

Although the plot of Let Us Prey (not to mention its title) is reminiscent of any number of horror films you could call to memory with little effort, it’s in the execution, rather than the set-up, that the movie excels.

Right from the doom-rock credit sequence of barbed wire dripping with fresh blood, squadrons of crows swarming in slow motion and darkened thunderclouds rolling overhead while a storm-tossed ocean lashes at coastal outcrops upon which a human silhouette stands defiant, it seems that subtlety is going to be in short order. However, despite being a sinister and bloody horror movie with increasingly overt religious undertones, Let Us Prey‘s first time feature director, Brian O’Malley, also exercises a perfectly utilised level of restraint that prevents it from crossing the line into farce. That doesn’t mean to say the film is without humour; the gobby bravado of the young ned is amusing, as is the occasional flash of self-awareness (“What is it with this fucking town?”), which prevents the film from becoming too bleak to be entertaining.

The small cast (eight characters of appropriately varied prominence) allows the events to remain tight and confined without becoming cluttered and the gradual reveal of the true extent of each person’s wrongdoings keeps things interesting.

The central mystery of what’s truly going on is anchored by the taciturn enigma of Liam Cunningham’s nameless vagabond. He seemingly manipulates events from his cell via matchsticks used like eldritch marionette control bars while uttering cryptic pronouncements of doom that are thankfully devoid of the irritating sense of patronising condescension all too frequent in such dialogue. Although his precise nature is never specifically stated, it’s clear he’s a supernatural avenging force targeting those who are so far beyond guilty they are now the irredeemable, the damned, the truly evil for whom salvation was a chance long since squandered. On the other end of the morality spectrum is Pollyanna McIntosh’s Rachel, seemingly the only one without a violent past, but whose own buried secret goes a long way to explaining her icy exterior and disgust for violent sadists, while her height and leanly muscular frame allow her to convince as a natural action girl.

The setting is deliberately vague (the town of Inveree doesn’t exist and the police officers’ uniforms have no area designation), and as the desolate, decaying settlement seems utterly devoid of all other (living) people, it’s entirely possible that they are all already in purgatory without realising it, with only the memories of their misdeeds to torment them as they await their sins to be counted out.

O’Malley has marked himself as a talent to watch. Striking a perfect balance of suspense, violence, humour, story and action, Let Us Prey feels at once classic and modern; horror the way it was always supposed to have been made. You will not be disappointed.

LET US PREY / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: BRIAN O’MALLEY / SCREENPLAY: FIONA WATSON, DAVID CAIRNS / STARRING: LIAM CUNNINGHAM, POLLYANNA MCINTOSH, BRYAN LARKIN, HANNA STANBRIDGE, DOUGLAS RUSSELL, BRIAN VERNEL / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 19TH 

Man of the moment Tom Hardy, fresh from his triumphant turn as Max Rockatansky, delights his fans in the double role of the Kray Twins, but the film itself, however, has a few shortcomings.

The story of Reggie and Ronnie Kray is the UK’s equivalent to the Capone/Mafia tale; a piece of folklore passed to each generation, with the nasty reality made more palatable with each re-telling. And it certainly is the case with this latest version of the boys’ lives. Narrated by Reggie’s wife, Frances (Browning), this is less a gritty underworld story and more a series of not-quite-as-brutal-as-they-should-be events. Her besotted character is meant to be the audiences’ ‘in’ to the world of the country’s most notorious gangsters, but we can’t help but feel she’s on the road to ruin from the start. Particularly as she attempts to steer Reggie – portrayed as more business-minded and focused than his psychotic brother – on the straight and narrow, an act that seems as futile and ill-advised as stealing from them. Not to mention the anomaly of her accounts of events she would have obviously had no way of being privy to.

Where the film does shine is the loose cannon sibling – Ronnie. Here, Hardy really acts. He embodies all the mannerisms and traits we would expect from seeing photos and footage of the real-life twins. A character whose personality could turn on a hairpin – and does. It’s a shame, then, that writer/director Helgeland doesn’t go all out with the violence to show us how absolutely reprehensible these people were. At least it doesn’t overplay the ‘well they loved their mother’ angle like the earlier Kemp Brother’s version. Indeed, mother here (played by Jane Wood) is a much more blinkered matriarch, turning a blind eye rather than encouraging the strength of the family.

Poor Christopher Eccleston doesn’t fair well, either. His character, Detective ‘Nipper’ Read, a man who was driven to bring the twins to justice is relegated to an ‘also ran’ role. His importance in their story should not be underestimated, as hinted at in the opening scenes in which the cocky Reggie chats to the frustrated copper on surveillance outside his home.

It’s not all lost, though. Legend is visually stunning and possesses a feel for the period that instantly draws you in. It’s not too flashy, but has enough flair to appeal to those brought up on Lock Stock rather than the crime dramas of the ‘60s and ‘70s. The narration actually gives it an almost noir-esque feel, which would have worked wonders had it been shot in black and white.

All in all, it’s not quite a misfire, but could have been so much more. Hardy, however, will come out of it higher than ever as he cements himself as a true acting powerhouse.

LEGEND / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: BRIAN HELGELAND / STARRING: TOM HARDY, CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON, EMILY BROWNING, COLIN MORGAN, TARA FITZGERALD / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Expected Rating: 8 out of 10
Actual Rating: 
 

Matter of Fact was made for The Sci-Fi London Film Festival’s 48 Hour Film Challenge, where a short film had to be written, shot and edited within the two-day restriction, given a specific title and incorporate a certain prop and line of dialogue. Although not the overall winner, it made the final shortlist of ten, and it’s easy to see why.

The BNP wet dream story takes place in the near future where the UK is now under the rule of a party of right-wing racists who have vowed to purge the land of its blight of undesirables. “White is Right: Matter of Fact” goes their credo, and is heard in faint staccato echoing from the streets outside where protagonist Victor is holed up, presumably chanted by roving gangs of skinheads as they swarm the streets in jackbooted mobs to hunt down anyone deemed to have too much skin pigmentation.

Ethnic cleansing is often used as a euphemism for genocide, but be the perceived taint national, religious, racial or even cultural, orchestrating mass murder takes effort and co-ordination. It would be so much simpler for these modern-day Blackshirts if the country could be purified with greater efficiency, and the film suggests that ways far more insidious than mere violence can be used for the fascists to achieve their goal.

Science fiction has a long tradition of employment as a vehicle for social commentary, and in such a vein Matter of Fact tacitly asks us to ponder how absolute power could have been given over to such blinkered ignorance in the first place. We live in a country where many people take Britain First seriously, The Daily Mail is cited as a reliable source, and people with the least authority and influence are blamed for the nation’s biggest problems, so the average person displaying the required complacency required for it to happen is all too easy to envision. The film also feels like a concentrated episode of Black Mirror; although it might be fiction, it nevertheless portrays a future that’s terrifyingly plausible.

MATTER OF FACT / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: ADAM LANNON / SCREENPLAY: STUART BLACK, NICK MATHER / STARRING: JUSTIN MAROSA, ALICE HENLEY, HOWARD CORLETT, ANDY BAINBRIDGE / RELEASE DATE: TBC