Length: 20:44
Logline: A bunch of criminals try to outwit each other
This is a fair attempt at being a twisting tale of deception and double crossing but for the keen eyed audience, there's too many obvious giveaways in the plot, making it less clever as it should have been.
There's good performances from Calum Swan, Rowan Birkett and Alan Cairncross (who looks like the least convincing hardened criminal you can get) but each does well to deliver the suitably well written dialogue, work great together on screen and bring a semblance of professionally to the production. It's a good genre piece; bumbling bad guys, dilapidated locations, guns and shit. (look out for the really plastic looking knife tho) But there's also a mixture of comedy in there too which doesn't work well with the central tone.
The film feels longer than it should be. A lot of shots could be cropped, not all scenes advance the plot (Cairncross berating his lackey for example) and the camera lingers too long in places. There's a hard balance to keep between building tension, creating atmosphere and keeping audiences engaged which a faster edit could perhaps help improve.
A major stumbling block in this production is the poor lighting on the external shots and the pub scene. It's hard to make a lot out and as these scenes account for a great portion of the film, it's a real let down for the audience. The internal flat scenes however are much clearer and you can appreciate both the acting and the camera composition a lot more. Really liked the fight scenes where good sound effects plus Cairncross's flowing locks combine together well to add realism (thought the scissors were going to give the hair a bit of a seeing too at one point). Similarly, the subtle make-up on the cuts and bruises has been done to give a nice effect. There's an odd mixture of music on the soundtrack. Some tracks work well, others don't; the pub music and the end credit song for example.
The plot is okay but as mentioned, it's not too hard to figure out who's double crossing who. The lengthy shot of the lipstick on the mirror in the first scene gives it all away really. Having stupid characters is fine but it's risky when you're making your central protagonist as stupid as the rest of them. It could make the audience feel equally daft for having rooted for him. Overall, there's many points that let this down but had some technical and plot points been executed to a higher degree, this would have made for a good effort.
This is a fair attempt at being a twisting tale of deception and double crossing but for the keen eyed audience, there's too many obvious giveaways in the plot, making it less clever as it should have been.
There's good performances from Calum Swan, Rowan Birkett and Alan Cairncross (who looks like the least convincing hardened criminal you can get) but each does well to deliver the suitably well written dialogue, work great together on screen and bring a semblance of professionally to the production. It's a good genre piece; bumbling bad guys, dilapidated locations, guns and shit. (look out for the really plastic looking knife tho) But there's also a mixture of comedy in there too which doesn't work well with the central tone.
The film feels longer than it should be. A lot of shots could be cropped, not all scenes advance the plot (Cairncross berating his lackey for example) and the camera lingers too long in places. There's a hard balance to keep between building tension, creating atmosphere and keeping audiences engaged which a faster edit could perhaps help improve.
A major stumbling block in this production is the poor lighting on the external shots and the pub scene. It's hard to make a lot out and as these scenes account for a great portion of the film, it's a real let down for the audience. The internal flat scenes however are much clearer and you can appreciate both the acting and the camera composition a lot more. Really liked the fight scenes where good sound effects plus Cairncross's flowing locks combine together well to add realism (thought the scissors were going to give the hair a bit of a seeing too at one point). Similarly, the subtle make-up on the cuts and bruises has been done to give a nice effect. There's an odd mixture of music on the soundtrack. Some tracks work well, others don't; the pub music and the end credit song for example.
The plot is okay but as mentioned, it's not too hard to figure out who's double crossing who. The lengthy shot of the lipstick on the mirror in the first scene gives it all away really. Having stupid characters is fine but it's risky when you're making your central protagonist as stupid as the rest of them. It could make the audience feel equally daft for having rooted for him. Overall, there's many points that let this down but had some technical and plot points been executed to a higher degree, this would have made for a good effort.
Best Bit: The cast and the dialogue.
Worst Bit: Poor lighting on half of the film.
Read a condensed review of this film on Twitter here.
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