Total Film

'A knuckleduster of a thriller'

The story.

Ex Boxer TOM (James McMartin) is on the ropes. His promising fight career is long over thanks to an eye injury, his marriage is on the rocks and he is broke. When a chance encounter at the gym leads to the offer of work as a doorman at a run down nightclub, the jury is out on whether he has taken a step on the road to redemption or finally hit the self-destruct button.

The volatile head doorman PAUL (Paul Barber), - knuckle-duster ever at the ready - is a battle hardened veteran from the old school. Recognising TOM for the fighter that he once was, PAUL takes him under his wing, and guides him through the ins and outs of life as a club land "peacekeeper."

TOM does his best to fit in and play the hard man, but soon strikes up a friendship with MARY (Lisa Parry), the world weary barmaid who recognises that there is something more to the down-on-his-luck fighter than meets the eye. Dealing with a smack on the nose and a drunk with a broken bottle is nothing for TOM compared to his inadequacy at dealing with a broken heart.

TOM soon finds out he has entered a world of trouble when CHONGI (Mark Russell), the head of the biggest, most ambitious security firm, has a score to settle with PAUL, and stakes an interest in the down-at-heel club. As the tension escalates, TOM is soon forced to question his new loyalties, and whether he really has lost the bottle for a fight.

IMDB Review

This movie truly made my week. Having for days been dragged through venues awash with self-conscious student theatre, the unpretentious grit of this film put me back on track.

No navel-gazing drama here, but a wonderfully darkly lit wide-screen world, filled with recalcitrant doormen (Paul Barber and James McMartin), a deluded wanna-be cowboy bar owner (Tom Bell), a cuddly crackhead (Andrew Scofield), and an array of Scouser cameos, delivering some of the off-hand comedy that flickers up here and there.

No message-laden, finger-wagging narrative either - instead we're dealt a strangely suspended, grimy, but somehow life-affirming status quo. One or two of the film's fight scenes might just be the other side of violent for some - but these punches look real and like they might actually hurt - rather than the usual slickly choreographed superhero stuff.

Do not try this at home.

Do, on the other hand, go and see this movie - it feels real too.