What to say of this one. As with Burn After Reading we have as many plus points as there are negatives. On the one hand this is an incredibly well made movie, I’m most inclined to compare it with Shane Meadows’ Dead Man’s Shoes or even his This is England which shared young Thomas Turgoose here. The overall impact of the movie is incredibly harrowing and bleak.

On the other hand, if you break your concentration for a second here, it’s really quite abysmally transparent. First off, no matter how limited an opportunity visiting this “flooded quarry” is for the ill-fated couple here, it’s kind of dumb to compare it in the script to the girl’s best friend’s alternate romantic weekend Paris. The place just ain’t the City of Lights, lol. Second, it takes a monumental leap of faith here at the start to believe first that these guys would confront the 4:1 outnumbering gang of hoodies (plus rabid dog) in the first place; and then to believe that after said gang deliberately slashes their tyres, that they would simply go to breakfast, and then go straight back to the point of first contact to stay the night. This is all not before trespassing in one of the hoodies’ houses in a seriously dodgy lookin’ neighbourhood. The Sat Nav at the start wittily warns them, “At your first opportunity, turn around,” – but by the time our heroine tells the not particularly bold hero, “It’s not worth it,” I’d kind of given up caring.

If you’re able to overlook all these nitpicks, however, it does have more of its share of effective moments than most movies of its kind in recent memory. What it wants to say is true, the worst of truths, hell being other people, the Daily Mail mindset, all that – I’m just not convinced it entirely succeeds.

Tags: British, children, horror

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 at 2:09 pm and is filed under 3 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.