ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

ultrasween Tony, written by the director and based on his 2005 short film, is a great example of the disease that "lets the bad guys win", which is plaguing independent films nowadays. In this vain attempt to be edgy, the film follows around socially-inept Tony as he encounters nothing but hostility and gives back nihlistic hate and misdirected retribution. His encounters are far too convenient, although, one would expect someone like Tony to focus solely on moments like these. Tied with the filmmakers' apparent laziness in thinking-through the central character, the film shows an incredibly unrealistic approach to victim struggles. On a similar note, the film claims to be "social realism" yet there is not a shred of human truth in any facet of this film. Furthermore, Tony is peppered with far too many red herrings, which throw the viewer around; leading us in one giant loop of illogic. Shameless-ly (pun on Exec. Producer Paul Abbott intended) exploitative, it provides no answers to so many questions that should have been passing thoughts on the road to a more crafted story. What ever happened to the bad guy going up in a ball of White Heat(1949) making us feel at least a shred of sympathy for them? S

Woodyanders Dour and mild-mannered recluse Tony (superbly played with chilling understated conviction by Peter Ferdinando) lives by himself in a rundown London flat. Jobless and friendless, barely scraping by on welfare, with an addiction to 80's action schlock, and suffering from a crippling lack of social skills, Tony occasionally snaps under the pressure of his miserable existence and kills people who get on his nerves.Writer/director Gerard Johnson astutely captures a powerfully gloomy feeling of ennui, despair, and urban blight, makes vivid use of grimy slum locations, wisely keeps the gore to an absolute minimum, likewise smartly avoids any cliché tragic back story to serve as a glib explanation for the root cause of Tony's psychosis, and sweetens the whole deal with inspired moments of wickedly amusing black humor. Moreover, Johnson does an ace job of presenting how a combination of loneliness, alienation, social ineptitude, and extremely abject poverty can easily send a man dangerously over the edge. While Ferdinando clearly dominates the picture with his exceptional portrayal of a pathetic everyday zhlub who outwardly comes across as hopelessly meek and therefor harmless (which is exactly why Tony gets away with murder), he nonetheless receives sterling support from Francis Pope as abrasive junkie Smudger, George Russo as Smudger's more easygoing buddy Mackey, Lorenzo Camporese as aggressive gay barroom pick-up Alex, Vicky Maskell as pesky neighbor Dawn, and Neil Maskell as feckless social worker Mike Hemmings. The stark hand-held cinematography by David Higgs further nails the overall sense of gritty realism. Kudos are also in order for The The's appropriately melancholy score. Dark, funny, and highly effective.

movieman_kev Conflicted about this film. It is well-acted especially by Peter Ferdinando who's spot-on as the emotionally-stunted soft-spoken psychopath Tony. Perhaps if I didn't read the positively glowing reviews for the movie, I would've ended up liking this lil slice-of-(serial killer) life film a tad more. It's not nearly as good as "Henry" a masterpiece that its often compared to and going into this one expecting it to be up on that level will likely be disappointed. However if you approach it blindly, and can get past the admittedly thick accents, then any fan of the sub-genre will still appreciate this one.

gavin6942 A thriller centered on a serial killer in a rundown London suburb... Hilarity ensues.While this film has the standard societal problems of drug use, prostitution and more, it differs in that our protagonist (if you can call him that) is the most socially awkward person imaginable. He prefers to cuddle with prostitutes rather than have sex, and he may never have even touched a beer. Watching him in these environments is painful.I had expected this to be like "Evil Ed", but with action films rather than horror. That is certainly not the case. The idea that he watches a lot of action films is quite played down and not nearly as important as I was lead to believe. The horror aspects in general are minor... this is not a typical serial killer film. At all.Is it good? Maybe, maybe not. I found it rather boring and as I said, painful. Maybe I went into it expecting the wrong thing and that ruined it for me. But it just never worked.