Dir.
Dan Reed, 2007, UK, 80 mins
Cast: Gillian Anderson, Danny Dyer, Anthony Calf
Review by Richard Badley
British cinema does a very good job of reading
the headlines. The recent spate of knife and gun murders
has highlighted a spreading epidemic of violence amongst
a misguided and disrespectful youth and, if you believe the
papers, society is doomed. In reaction British film has abandoned
its cosy rom-coms and knockabout slices of low-level crime
to give audiences a chance to squirm in their seats about
how awful everything is through gory horror, gritty male
violence (that recently culminated in Nick Love's vigilante
study Outlaw) and loads of Danny Dyer. Continuing the trend,
with even more of Dyer, is Straightheads, a disturbing thriller
concerning rape and revenge that explores the horrific repercussions
of violence in a world spiralling out of control.
With a sharp English accent Gillian
Anderson plays Alice, a steely, powerful businesswoman
in London who meets surveillance engineer Adam (Dyer),
a typical 20-something geezer. Fancying a bit of rough
she invites him to a party in the country but after a quickie
in the woods their one night stand turns into one of brutality
that will scar them forever. Driving home they are viciously
beaten by local men – Alice
is raped and Adam loses his sight in one eye. With the police
able to do nothing, Alice takes the couple along a path of
revenge when she learns one of the men was Heffer (Calf).
It leads to an act of grotesque, almost comical, violence.
Documentary filmmaker Dan Reed has
a long pedigree of films concerning violence across the
world and in this debut feature he attempts to condense
the quaking fear every person has about the pain and consequences
of violent acts. But the film quickly goes from a realistic
portrayal of “what
would you do?” to one of fantasy and the road to revenge
becomes a very easy choice once Alice has found her father's
gun and that his house is rather conveniently situated down
the road from Heffer's.
The script came from a dream Reed had after witnessing an
attempted rape and is likewise a short, sharp shock. It's
a viewing experience that challenges just how far a viewer
would go to get an eye-for-an-eye while revelling in those
sickening actions, a Freudian mindscape filmed by Clive Barker.
The ending will confound or shock,
but it comes at the expense of presenting a more serious
experience through its characters who are scantly portrayed
yet hint at larger themes at work. Anderson gives a strong
performance, her ice queen, not adverse to squatting in
the woods to take a piss, shows imperceptible cracks and
a yearning for love, but director Reed never settles on
whether she simply seeks an explanation behind the attack
or is always intent on bloody revenge. Dyer is handed a lesser
role but makes more of an impact, avoiding his usual boisterous
caricature to show wounded masculinity as he desperately
tries to reassert his authority and his now limp sexuality.
His almost childlike “where are we going with this?” during
the final attack shows a man given the excuse to be swept
up by violence and becoming as evil as the original perpetrators.
There's the feeling that Straightheads might be better received
had it the more underground appeal of a foreign language
(it certainly falls into the same category as more arty hardcore
thrillers like Irreversible) and Reed does highlight the
difference between a documentary and a fictional film; that
one attempts to present reality while the other can be more
subjective, trawling through a viewer's subconscious to let
them act out their fantasies no matter how twisted. On this
base level Straightheads is a disturbing descent into a free-wheeling
act of visceral revenge unbound by a world based on law and
order yet ultimately undone by this lack of control or responsibility.
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