This film is menacing, it broods away all throughout the film waiting to boil over and scold everything in it's path and almost doesn't it teases you with it, the film has tension and is extremely moody. Clive Owen is great when he stares you can picture him jumping out of his skin and tearing you apart, quality viewing a very moody, underated, brilliant film.
shareCheer's shaolinmastah I glad someone has written that the film is underrated.
shareI'm relieved that others share my (high) opinion of this movie. I can understand why some people don't like it, but I thought it was pretty brilliant. Cliche in some respects, but the overall effect was unique. I even like the jazz score. Also, as an American who has an affinity for Britain, I like that this movie did not present the country in a stereotypical way.
shareWhat the film was more was about machoism and humilation and most of all power. You got Boad the car dealer who rapes Davy because he envys what Davy got, charm, good looks etc. I know many people whose watched this film thinks it totally trivial, but then again most issues are.
For Turner he feels threatened that Graham will take over again and jumps into the wrong conclusions in get the Irish hitman.
For Mickster, he lacks power without Graham, in the scene when Mickster gets a lift off Turner he's feels threatened by Turner. Afterward when Graham comes back to found out what happened to Davy. Mickster wants to help Graham to kill whose responsible, but could never do it on his own.
I like your comments, ninfilms. One of the things I appreciate about this movie is how characters' relationships and motivations aren't spelled out for you. I think that's why many people don't understand ISWID; they're used to (or prefer) films that are more clear cut.
shareThe thing about Mike Hodges films are about not spoon feeding your audience. Even Get Carter gets you to ask questions things like the hitman who shot Carter was also on the train. The question many audience have asked was the hitman following Carter from start or is it a coinsidence that the hitman was just on the same.
Another Hodges film which divides audience is Black Rainbow, which again deals with psychological themes instead of using special effects.
I don't know what youre talking about, just about every scene besides in the beginning and in the end quite simply made no sense or didn't matter. Oh yes, besides the bad writing and directing, i'd say the editors have just sealed the fate of this lousy movie!
shareYou don't know what I'm talking about. Never mind.
shareI'd just like to add that I saw this film quite recently and found it very engrossing. I think people tend to have different opinions on what is good and bad acting, directing etc. but I felt the film was spot on in most respects and deserves a good 6 or 7 out of ten at least.
I think you can either get into the character relationships and care about how Clive Owen's character was going to find out and what he would do, or you could not get into it and say "has he killed him yet?".
"They say trouble comes in threes, I say Chicken Caesar grows on trees."
As I mentioned earlier this film isn't about killing any Tom, Dick and Harry like Death Wish or even the recent Outlaw. This film is more like Unforgiven where you got a veteran who killed in the past, which people underestimates them about saying or he's not going to do anything. Just for that one moment, he get that drive back.
shareI absolutely agree with you. I believe there wasn't much ambiguity in the film at all. I like to watch films that inspire me to analyse and tease out meanings that are hidden but in this case, this film was dull on many many levels. The editing was absolutely horrible, and the writing made me unsure whether to see it as laughable or terrible. the "weird" one liners that meaningless characters came up with were just intolerable. Examples are the waitress in the restaurant asking Will Graham where he was going and then following it with "can i come with you?" and walking away in a panic; and another one was the taxi driver just suddenly stating "that's it I'm going to New York" before promptly abandoning his vehicle. I don't know whether the write wanted to inject some surreal element to the plot but whatever it was it failed. The motivations for character's actions were really bizarre. Fair enough it's all about power, I think the first few minutes of the film spelled it out quite clearly and didn't need to repeat over and over again. If people missed it because they were too engrossed in the mood and the human-like cars in the rain, the psychologist spells it out in capitals for you by saying it straight and plain "this is all about power". But a person stalking another person with his friends and calculatingly orchestrating a rape, just because he was too cocky is somewhat strange. Davey's reaction was rather quick, as he didn't even give himself a chance to feel the emotional pain associated with rape. He didn't even give himself chance to redo his trousers, he just ran home to kill himself. And finally his brother Will, who cannot bring himself to express any emotion but reacts in a rather "passionate way" to his younger brother's passing.
Anyways to conclude, the mood of the film was good, the pace of the film was mediocre, the editing was crap and the dialogue even worse. i don't care whether the plot only "threatened" to happen but never did, that's actually clever in my opinion, but the characters were useless. the only performance to speak of was Mickster's, who was the only one who reacted emotionally to the event, regardless of his own shortcomings. So yes Overrated would be more accurate to describe this film.
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I agree.
Credo ergo sum