Simultaneously burying and rejuvenating a dying genre, My Brother The Devil has done for languid London gangster films what Daniel Craig did for Bond. Measured, grubby, brutal as hell, Sally El Hosaini’s city-set drama knows that it’s playing in the same paddling pool as dross like Adulthood, and it isn’t afraid to stick up a finger as it strides off into tantalising new territory.
There’s a lot at stake in My Brother The Devil. Rashid (James Floyd) is a British Arab who’s spent his days prowling Hackney with a gang of equally direction-less youths. Just as Rashid decides he wants out, though, younger brother Mo (Fady Elsayed) is nosing his way into that same flick-knife world of drugs, cold cash and doomed trysts.
It sounds like exactly the kind of film that MBTD wants to distance itself from, and that’s what makes it pop. A firecracker of a mid-point twist sets up an unexpected number of challenges for audiences and characters. Meanwhile, the performances are riveting, intense but never earnest. Plan B may have created a blistering edict on London life with his film iLL Manors, but Hosaini (who won Best British Newcomer at the London Film Festival) has a more reliable voice. My Brother The Devil paints a portrait of London that’s as unforgiving and realistic as you’re ever likely to see. 4/5
Via Grolsch Film Works
Following on from the likes of Kick-Ass and Christopher Nolan’s Bat trilogy, Chronicle not only made superheroes (and, pivotally, supervillains) thrillingly plausible, it also did so without any silly costumes, A-list stars or – most impressively – wheelbarrows of cash (its budget: just $12m). That alone should earn the film our respect. Chronicle is more than an ambitious indie super-film, though. With its likeable characters and measured approach, it’s a human drama that slogs you right where it hurts.
The Pretty Gentleman is a fantastic read. Painstakingly researched and beautiful in its evocations of a bygone era, its tale of passion, corruption and vengeance grips from the first page to the last.
Most documentaries are obsessed with truth. That is, getting to the bottom of it, uncovering hidden facts or exposing terrible deceits. Not so The Imposter. Under the sure hand of Brit director Bart Layton, it’s a film about truths, plural, Layton’s gorgeously-shot jaw-dropper of a documentary chipping away at the notion of subjective truth, and the lies we tell ourselves and each other.
After the subdued and melancholy The Road, director John Hillcoat comes out guns blazing with Lawless – a period crime saga that’s the movie equivalent of a mainstream pop hit, and one containing about as much subtlety.
Time travel movies generally belong to the geeks. Back To The Future, 12 Monkeys, Donnie Darko… With Safety Not Guaranteed, though, geeks are just going to have to accept it – time travel has been pinched by independent film. And thank goodness for that.
Haunted houses, Japanese ghost girls, grainy found footage. Ghost stories once had the power to strike fear in the hearts of cinema-goers. After years of reboots, remakes and just plain rubbish, though, that power has dwindled. This year’s Woman In Black aside, films about spooks and phantoms have generally, uh, given up the ghost. Which, one assumes, is precisely why director Nicholas McCarthy has set his no-budget chiller, The Pact, in the last place you’d expect – sunny, modern day San Pedro. All the better to scare you with.
1. Camp Crystal Lake – The Friday The 13th franchise
“Welcome back to the shadows, we’ve missed you,” intones one character in Tim Burton’s latest genre-blitzer. It could easily be directed at Burton himself.
