Paul Andrew Williams’ film follows in the prestigious footsteps of classics such as Point Blank or Get Carter in which someone who’s been betrayed comes back to exact violent revenge on those who has wronged him. Merging it with the Guy Richie geezer gangster pic but replacing any cheeky Cockney laughs with effectively executed and gory scenes of dismemberment or worse, the film tells its story in an intriguingly piecemeal fashion, flipping between past and present, to amp up both tension and the mystery surrounding Neil Maskell’s titular character’s return which leaves a trail of carnage behind him as he searches for his wife and son. There’s a twist here that I won’t spoil by mentioning another film that Williams as screenwriter has taken inspiration from. Suffice to say there are hints throughout and the use of flashbacks acts also as a decoy to hide that in plain sight. For a script that requires its audience to mentally piece together fragmented information to get the whole story, the way characters are introduced could be handled with more clarity and I suspect a few set-ups are botched leaving us with more questions than answers (who was the guy shot in the garage in the opening scene? who’s the woman vicar in the last?). Furthermore, superficially written female characters become problematically interchangeable, and it doesn’t help that they are named Cheryl and Sharon which causes more unnecessary confusion, especially when the cast slips into Eastenders-style shouty acting. However, David Hayman is properly menacing as Bull’s gangster father-in-law while Maskell’s stoic cold-blooded killer is convincing even if he reminds me of a constipated mean-looking Ricky Gervais. Williams’ directing and pacing is solid, and he shows occasional visual flair which makes this decent small-budgeted Brit-indie film pops and shines even if only momentarily.
@SubtitledFriend 