Plot: Nearly a year after a botched job, a hitman takes a new assignment with the promise of a big payoff for three killings. What starts off as an easy task soon unravels, sending the killer into the heart of darkness.
Starring: Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, Michael Smiley
My Review and Thoughts:
Wow. Yes I start my review out with a simple word, WOW. This is a new favorite of mine.
The music score is phenomenal and gives a sense of nightmarish reality to the underlining ordeal of what's about to happen. There is a dramatic structure to the film, slow pace, slow burn reality, as the characters are created. The structure of drama as characterizations are built for the viewer is a flawless and believable sense of everyday life.
The family life, the struggle of money, wife and husband not getting along. You the viewer can sense that what's about to happen, the coming storm is going to be far greater.
As the characters are built, you the viewer start to realize there's a darker nature. A darker nature and a third structure to the reality of the movie, a hidden agenda to twist and turn the viewers thinking.
It's been eight months since Jays last job. The job didn't go so well and so Jay is taking himself out of the game. There is no money coming in. His wife is upset because no money and they have a small son.
Soon the stress of his life, money and the family bring him back into the game with his old partner Gal. Gal tells him about a new client, a new job.
This is a pure, gritty crime thriller. The gangster hitman film showcases a no holds bar reality to violence. It mixes the graphic violence of a Martin Scorsese film but much worse.
The new job details three hits. Now Jay is struggling and suffering at what had happened eight months ago, the reason that he went off the job. Which becomes another fantastic reality to the movie because it's a mystery the viewer has to use there imagination on.
Slowly as the next job takes place you can see Jay stepping off the listed details of the hits. The second hit leads Jay astray to a more complex story. This film is a very graphic and violent watch and it does not hold back in the deaths.
The murder of the librarian is very graphic and the filming is truly a horrifying disturbing reality. The music score throughout the movie displays a very deep and dark nightmarish sense of emotions which makes you since the dread coming. Makes you sense the destruction and the lack of humanity.
with the violence that is happening.
Jay starts to experience strange moments, voices and images of people ranting with messages. This movie gives you a twist and turn, 365 degree turn around in the final solution.
The list consisted of the priest, the librarian and the M.P. They take on their final assignment which ends up being something far greater than they ever could process. The dark nature of something they could never understand ends up taking them on a journey into fear.
This becomes a very terrifying ordeal of an experience for the viewer. The witness of the final conclusion, the claustrophobic ordeal in the tunnel, the cult rituals and a living sacrifice
This film is a stunningly brilliant and atmospheric Tour-de-force. Through the acting, direction and the music and the images this is truly a modern-day masterpiece. A one-of-a-kind original and brilliant thought-provoking and awe-inspiring and mind-numbing film.
I can't believe there has not been more buzz over this movie. Something that starts out as a drama, ends up becoming a Hitman gangster type film, switching to a darker nature of the unknown. The suspense and mystery and secret societies, agendas and what is the real truth.
Cannot praise this movie enough. I highly recommend this. This is no ordinary film. When you think you know what's happening. When you think it's just another gangster hitman film it all changes. This film twist and turns into an atmospheric orgy of violence and tension filled horror.
Brilliant piece of originality. It's hard to explain. The last 30 minutes of this film takes a drug-induced high.
I've seen the future of music scores and it's Jim Williams. The music throughout the movie brings out all the emotions in every shot, from the nightmarish music, to the drama induced music, to most importantly, the demonic eerie sound. Jim Williams is a master at the music score.
Also I have to mention the three main actors, their performances together are stunningly artistic and award worthy. From the beautiful actress MyAnna Buring as a worried wife and mom to her inner sadness, it all flows in harmony. Michael Smiley gives what acting is lacking, a realism to the acting world. His part felt real. Hands down Willy Wonka's golden ticket goes to Neil Maskell in the lead role of a struggling father and husband ashamed and clouded with past actions on the verge of insanity.
A truly perfect wide-eyed, gaping mouth of confusion becomes your reaction. The movie becomes a complete mystery of suspense and horror and violence creating something so new, fresh and down right brilliant. I was thoroughly satisfied. I think Ben Wheatley created a masterpiece that will last the test of time. This is genuinely the dark nature of the soul and the consequences of ones actions and the inner workings of true life gone wrong.