Dir. Matthew Hope, UK, 2011, 98 mins
Cast: Toby Kebbell, Adi Bielski, Brian Cox,
Review by Carol Allen
In this political cum action thriller Toby Kebbell, who’s already proved his versatility in supporting roles such as Joy Division manager Rob Gretton in Control and the runaway rock and roll singer of Rock’n’Rolla, demonstrates his ability to carry a film as lead actor. He plays Afghan war veteran Robert Miller, returning to his home on a tough London council estate and having difficulty in adjusting to civilian life. He is very soon recruited however by a somewhat murky and possibly self appointed surveillance organisation, which is headed by Gerry Langdon (Cox), to monitor a suspected terrorist cell, where the organisation believes their “mole” (Bielski) may have betrayed them and changed allegiance.
There are a lot of good things about this film, most notably Kebbell’s very convincing performance. For the first ten minutes or so of the film – the scenes of him returning to his solitary flat – he speaks not a word but we learn a lot about the character, who exercises an iron self control, which periodically collapses into fits of violence – an indication of the post traumatic stress from which he is suffering. First time writer/director Hope has also found appropriately grotty London locations for his settings, which he uses to good effect and there are strong supporting performances from Tom Brooke as Danny, Robert’s mate from the army days, Tony Curran as Danny’s brother, who is Robert’s control figure and the ever reliable Cox, who is a bit under used here.
There are some good scenes of tension, as when Robert breaks into a terrorist bomb factory with professional ease and some appropriately disturbing sequences of violence and torture, when he is captured by members of the terrorist cell. The actual plot however tends to get a bit bogged down in some impenetrable complications. There is a scene towards the end of the film for example when Cox explains what I suspect may be the nub of the story, about how keeping the populace in a state of constant fear is an effective means of distracting us all from the real issues, which gets a bit lost in the surrounding mayhem. And the climactic well staged shoot out on the council estate between Toby and the drugs gang, who appear to be connected to Gerry’s organisation in some unexplained way, while very well filmed and edited, as is the rest of the film, does however verge on the ridiculous. In a world where the police are justifiably exercised by any use of guns, it is unbelievable that an all out battle involving a positive arsenal of heavy weaponry and multiple casualties would fail to attract their attention.
Despite its faults though the film is still a creditable debut for Hope and well worth seeing for Kebbel’s performance.
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I thought this film was good in parts but felt that it maybe could of done better as a documentary type of film as opposed to a action type film.
I am not sure what it was about it but apart from a few things there was very little to shout home about in my opinion the best bit being the camera work, and like you said a solid performance by Kebbell
Hope you don’t mind here is my full review http://totalreach.co.uk/2011/05/the-veteran-review/