Protein | mouthwatering tale of wandering menace

Protein isn’t your usual tale of wandering revenge. It pulses within a society on the margins and fills its belly – literally – with those who inhabit the dark, duplicitous world.

Join 1,648 other subscribers.

That world is set in Wales, and it’s refreshing to see a film that takes its gaze away from the major centres to the rural margins. It’s exactly the type of place itinerant Sion (Craig Russell) would rock up. And it’s the ideal setting for pumped up men with inflated ideas of themselves to engage in a shoulder-bumping cock-fight for supremacy.

Quiet, and obviously troubled, Sion arrives in town and pops to the low-key gym for his regular iron-pounding session. Befriended by the gym’s manager, single mum Katrina (Kezia Burrows), who spots a gentle somebody who also needs a little looking after he is taken on as a cleaner. Also at the gym, pomping it up, are the local heavies, who are keen to step up their involvement in the area’s drug distribution. In the process, their threatening behaviour marks them out for Sion’s special attention, which inadvertently threatens to spark a turf war.

Troubled by his PTSD, Sion’s special treatment involves a spot of fastidious, waste-not cannibalism. With all of that, Craig Russell portrays him with a diligent delicacy and vulnerability. Odd for a bone-crunching meat eater living on the edge, but he carries it off. It makes him invisible to the gangsters and adds a poignant authenticity to the clumsy relationship.

Hullo...

Thank you for reading. We could do with your help to keep going. All our content is free... But if you can, you can support us to continue bringing you this coverage, these articles, interviews and reviews. This connection with real indie filmmakers.

It's here we encourage you to get out, watch indie films, support crowdfunders, go to your local venue.

And if you can, Pay What You Can to keep all this going. From £1 a week - £4 a month - a fiver, or whatever you can spare. Much appreciated.

In fact, all the performances pull their weight. Kezia Burrows has a worn-out and worn-down hardness that longs for a connection and bristles with rejection. Bouncer Dwayne (Kai Owen) bubbles with a menace that thinks too much of itself. The town’s bigwig, Joe Llewelyn (Richard Mylan), oozes unctuous complacency. And gang-member Kevin (Steve Meo) has the comedy of being a hapless hanger on: both the runt and scapegoat of the crew. Toxic masculinity abounds.

On the investigating side, the appearance of police person Patch (Andrea Hall), who’s searching for a serial killer, points to a potential past for Sion. There’s a put-upon weariness, which is teamed up with the local police in the form of cynical, jaded and deeply sad Stanton (Charles Dale).

“Everyone has a secret,” Craig told D&CFilm in an interview we had with him. It’s an interlocking spaghetti of disconnection, motivation and alienation.

Writer director Tony Burke has developed and fleshed out his early 2014 short for a slice of a world in the grey. It’s both tantilisingly edgy and realistically humdrum. There’s a weight to what’s going on and you’re left to wonder if the horror is in Sion, or in the fractured world that surrounds us all.

Protein is dark, rich, peppered with comedy and seasoned with fine performances. And it has plenty more you can chew on.

Protein | Twitter | Instagram