Sex, Leins & Videotape #23. Paignton film critic Tom Leins gets a dose of home-grown home entertainment with this week’s Brit-flick bonanza!
First up this week – Tony: London Serial Killer (Revolver) – an enjoyably strange serial killer thriller from novice writer/director Gerard Johnson. It focuses on Tony, a terminally unemployable loner who lures unsuspecting men back to his flat for company. Unfortunately for them, Tony isn’t just a disturbed loner who craves attention, he’s also a murderous psychopath!
If the premise sounds underwhelming, Johnson’s set-up is rich in detail – not least Tony’s obsession with dodgy VHS action movies. The sordid London backdrop is a seedy blur of brothels, gay clubs and job centres, and gives the movie a bizarre Nil By Mouth-meets-Taxi Driver vibe! Weird? You bet! If you thought that Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer was too glum, check out this irreverent gem!
When a local boy goes missing, Tony (dubbed a ‘Nonce’ by the geezers on his estate) starts to attract all kinds of unwelcome attention, and the dismembered skeletons look set to tumble out of his dirty closet. Grisly and hilarious in equal measure, Tony is a real triumph, and points towards a bright future for director Johnson. If he plays his cards right, Johnson could do for London what Shane Meadows has done for the Midlands, and leading man Peter Ferdinando could yet prove to be Johnson’s answer to Paddy Considine. Although Tony grinds to a halt just as it threatens to lurch into even darker territory, it is still an arresting debut movie that richly deserves its inevitable cult status.
Originally shown on Channel 4 back in 2007, Boy A (Optimum) is a riveting drama that follows Jack Burridge (Andrew Garfield), a young man who is let out of prison after serving a 14-year sentence for a murder he committed as a small child. With the help of his tireless social worker Terry (Peter Mullan) Jack edges back into society and quickly acquires a job, a girlfriend and a new set of mates – all of whom are utterly oblivious to his disturbing secret. After he rescues a young girl from a car crash, Jack begins to attract local media attention, and worries that his long suppressed secret may come spilling out after all, and destroy his painstakingly constructed new life.
Boy A makes for utterly gripping viewing throughout, and the well-judged cast fleshes out the all-too-plausible storyline with aplomb. The uncomfortable parallels with the James Bulger murder are there for all to see, and Boy A drags the viewer to some seriously dark places in its quest for answers. That said, it avoids easy answers throughout, and Garfield’s terrific lead performance imbues the film with a genuine sense of emotion. Bleak but brilliant, Boy A presents viewers with a moral maelstrom that forces you to confront issues that you may not want to confront. Impressive stuff.
Nick Love has made a career out of documenting the grubby lives of shifty London males, and his latest stab at probing the modern male psyche is The Firm (Warner Home Video), a loose remake of Alan Clarke’s notorious 1989 TV movie. The original starred Gary Oldman as Bex, a charismatic estate agent who, along with his well-to-do friends, gets his kicks out of weekend hooliganism. If Clarke’s movie was a subtle social commentary, then Love’s version of events is about as subtle as a Stanley knife to the face! (In fact, the only subtle moment comes when it is revealed that Bex’s estate agency is called ‘Hunter, Ashton & Clarke’ – a welcome nod in the direction of original writer Al Hunter-Ashton and director Alan Clarke.)
Rather than concentrate too heavily on Bex’s behaviour, Love’s movie focuses on impressionable youngster Dom, who is utterly in thrall to the older hooligan, and worms his way into the Top Boy’s affections, only to realise that it isn’t quite so easy to back out again. The rise-and-fall narrative may be well-worn, but Love’s movie comes into its element when it pushes its 80s period details to the fore. With its delirious blend of 80s leisurewear, impenetrable Cockney slang and enjoyably naff music, The Firm is a triumph of style over substance, and represents something of a return to form after Love’s hideous vigilante thriller Outlaw. Love’s next vintage television remake project is an overhaul of The Sweeney starring Ray Winstone and Michael Fassbender. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
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