★★☆☆☆
TV and music video-turned-feature director Adam Smith makes an admirably intentioned but disappointing debut that feels lackadaisically cut from the same cloth as the kind of rough British crime dramas we’ve seen a million times before.
Chad Cutler (a charismatic-as-ever Michael Fassbender, pictured) is an uneducated serial thief who lives in a dishevelled campsite in the middle of the otherwise beautiful Northern English countryside. He is bogged down in a world from which he’s desperate to escape in order to make a better life for his family.
He’s being held back by a life he inherited from his father Colby (Brendan Gleeson), who almost wears his ignorance like a badge of honour and would rather his son just stay where he is, living the life of travellers just barely getting by but without anyone from the outside telling them what to do. It’s thinly-plotted in the extreme; the closest we get to a through-line is the police trying to nail Chad for his part in a local robbery gone awry. When that’s the case you need some serious dramatic heft or well-written dialogue or a half way interesting sense of visual panache to balance that out. This sadly has very little of those things.
It’s really only the cast that grabs the attention in what is otherwise quite a half-baked and curiously inauthentic film despite its gruff stylistic leanings and purposefully mumbling, heavily accented dialogue.
There’s certainly passion and a certain thematic reach to be found in this tale of downtrodden lives, class difference and the weight of a family’s past on prospects for the future. But it’s never able to properly grasp and wrestle much of what it presents, leaving instead a scattershot, distractingly quirky and ultimately unsatisfying drama.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here