Film Review: DOWN TERRACE (2009)

Director: Ben Wheatley
Writers: Robin Hill, Ben Wheatley
Running time: 89 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): 15

Genre: Crime/Drama/Comedy
UK Release date: 30^th July 2010

Watched on Terrestrial PVR Saturday 20^th September 2013.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE UNINTENTIONAL SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

I can’t say I’m particularly a fan of Ben Wheatley’s work, but to be fair, I haven’t seen an awful lot of it. I put this partly to rights when one of the film channels here in the UK decided to show a short season of his films to coincide with the release of ‘A Field in England’, (review here). I certainly found this an interesting film with a very interesting style. I will tell you more after this very brief summary.

When father and son Bill (Robert Hill) and Karl (Robin Hill) get let off drug trafficking charges in court they return home to their terraced house. There waiting for them is Maggie (Julia Deakin), Bill’s wife, and a lad who works for them, Garvy (Tony Way). They want to get to the bottom of who had set them up and their suspicions initially fall on Garvy. Other characters begin to turn up; Eric (David Schaal) and Pringle (Michael Smiley), both of the criminal fraternity and then there’s Valda (Kerry Peacock), an ex-girlfriend of Karl’s who happens to be pregnant with his kid. As I said, there were suspicious of Garvy, but how far will it go before the week is out?

This film was billed as a comedy but I found it so darkly comic that I could almost take it as a straight-up drama. All the performances were excellent with both Robert and Robin Hill putting in stellar turns. A cross between a kitchen sink drama and a fly-on-the-wall documentary, I found the filming style made for a compelling watch. Unfortunately there were a couple of niggles. They are supposed to be drug dealers but we see no drug dealing going on. Also, the police were very conspicuous by their absence; not one policeman seen al the way through. You’d have thought the police would definitely be watching someone with their track record. Other than that I found it an interesting and compelling watch. Just a word for the squeamish though, Ben Wheatley does not hold back on the violence. There are a couple of quite graphic scenes in there that might have you wincing.

SteelMonster’s verdict: RECOMMENDED

My score: 7.1/10.

IMDb Score: 6.1/10 (based on 1,424 votes when this review was written).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1489167/

MetaScore: 68/100: (Based on 14 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes ‘Tomatometer’ Score: 85/100: (based on 34 reviews counted at the time of going to press).

Rotten Tomatoes ‘Audience’ Score: 60/100: (based on 1,371 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/down-terrace/

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LINKS:
(Note: All were working at the time of going to press)
Official Site: http://www.downterrace.com/
Official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/downterrace
Trailer: