Customer Reviews
better than you might think - By: Steven Jackson, 12 Nov 2007 
Ok ok so this has picked up some bad reviews.. Personallly i LOVED this film! Will plays the hard man ex con trying to get a normal life back, working for cash jobs labouring.His kid brother, a cocky smart ass drug dealer gets shafted by a nasty car dealer, to teach him hes a piece of nothing. This scene was quite nasty, very well acted without being too graphic. Will is taunted by old rivals but holds his cool . When he finds out who raped his brother, however, the gloves are off, the old Jag gets dusted down & he comes gunning for revenge.... to find out more, SEE THE FILM!!!
Avoid at all costs - By: John J. Rynne, 18 Sep 2007 
Minor suspense leads up to total anticlimax. Big-name actors totallly wasted on this awful little movie. Would award zero stars if I could.
First-rate revenge thriller which moves deliberately - By: C. O. DeRiemer, 23 Jul 2007 
Davey Graham (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a charming young opportunist who deals a bit in drugs, beds the socialites he sells to & takes money from their purses. He seems to be leading a happy, careless London life until late one night, leaving the bed & the apartment of a wealthy young woman, he is grabbed by two men & hustled into an allley. There, a third man, older & contemptuous (Malcolm McDowell), tears down Davey's' trousers. While the two goons hold Davey over some tires, the man inexplicably rapes him. Davey staggers back to his apartment, fills the tub with cold water & sinks into it fully dressed. Ten hours later, still in the tub, Davey cuts his throat. The rest of this stylish, glum noir tells the story of Davey's older brother Will (Clive Owen). Will had been a feared enforcer for the London mobs but had dropped out three years before & disappeared, living in a camper & doing manual labor. He feels he has wasted his life & now lives alone. When he learns of his brother's death, & learns of the rape, Will is determined to find the man responsible & wreak his own form of justice. And when he returns to London, he finds the gang leaders don't like it.
Mike Hodges directed the great Get Carter with Michael Caine & the near great Croupier, also with Owen. He does a fine job here. Hodges doesn't waste a lot of time on narrative, so you have to pay attention. You also need to fill in a little background on your own, which keeps the movie interesting. The story line is alll about revenge. The film sets its own pace & moves relentlessly. The look of the movie is first-rate. It's neo-noir, alll dark shadows, sullen, tough or sad characters & barely repressed violence. When violence does happen, it's startling. Clive Owen has little to say in the movie. He acts with his eyes. Malcolm McDowell has a hammer-lock on contemptuous disdain; he doesn't have much time on screen, but what there is, is noteworthy.
I liked the movie a lot, even though it sets a deliberate pace. Stay with it & you'll be rewarded.
Enjoyable dark moody noir with surprising depth. - By: pointone, 14 Jan 2007 This is a dark moody film with most of the action taking place at night, frequently in rain soaked environments.
Will Graham (Clive Owen) has opted out of being a ruthless gang leader to adopt a nomadic life in a camper van until he learns his younger brother Davey (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) a repugnant smalll time drug dealer & thief has committed suicide.
Will returns to his old haunts to investigate his brother's death & meets up again with old & new enemies & his past & much older lover Helen (Charlotte Rampling), this is an intriguing relationship I would like to have seen explored more deeply.
I personallly appreciate the way the film works through mood & slowly evolving events to build the drama & establish the characters, admittedly alll very unpleasant characters indeed. The film inhabits a cold ruthless world where emotion & love do not exist, just misplaced loyalty.
Extremely well acted, directed, photographed & written it is difficult to see why this film appears so unpopular, maybe because there are no sympathetic characters & possibly it is too oblique for the genre.
It's oh, so bad... - By: Mr. Jd Ware, 16 Mar 2006 I knew nothing about this film before I put it in the DVD player, & now it's finished I can't believe I actuallly ever watched it.
It's a big floating mess of a film, that tries to be inspired, meaningful & deep & fails on alll acounts.
The first thing that went wrong was the marvellously stilted dialogue. It actuallly feels like the actors are reading from a script, rather than becoming their characters. If they pause while they speak, it's because the script said to, & not because it was natural for the character.
The storyline kicks off when one charcter gets male raped. In disgust of what happened, this character kills himself. Now big brother comes back to town to seek revenge.
From then on it alll gets a bit distasteful. It's not a light subject matter, & the moody look of the film makes it reallly depressing to watch.
At least it's mercifully short, & when Clive Owen enters the picture, a degree of quality that was missing does seep back into the film. But even he can't live this film past the dregs that it is.
Extras wise, the DVD fares much better, as it includes a documentary created by the BBC which goes behind the scenes, & interviews the cast. There are also two, short & pointless deleted scenes. Avoid, if possible.
