Film review: New Town Killers

Published on Friday 5 June 2009 16:10

NEW TOWN KILLERS (15) Director: Richard Jobson Running time: 97 minutes ***

RICHARD Jobson's new indie thriller could go in a lot of directions. It touches on philosophy (what lengths will we go to survive?), global capitalism (what reserves of compassion do corporate figures have for the little guy) and even modern celebrity (whatever happened to Dougray Scott?).

The chief direction Jobson chooses, however, is racing around Edinburgh at night with the former Mr Desperate Housewife. Scott plays Alistair, a sleekly decadent banker who has set up a deadly game of hide and seek to entertain himself and his slightly less sociopathic sidekick (Alastair Mackenzie). Their selected prey is Sean (James Anthony Pearson), who is trying to lift his sister (Liz White) out of a money pit of debt and impatient creditors. Scott's banker has dangled just enough money to solve their problems: all Sean has to do is successfully hide for a night and he will win enough money to put all their financial woes to bed.

Of course, it's not that easy because he can't leave Edinburgh. The train station has been closed by a body on the line presumably provided by Alistair, the bus station is being watched and Sean has been electronically tagged. Friends betray him, while people who help him are apt to get chucked out of windows, incidental victims of voracious capitalism. Unlike The Most Dangerous Game, the 1932 template for all these run-for-your-life manhunt movies, the bankers are not sporting chaps. But then, they are bankers.

New Town Killers is the kind of film that stretches its cast physically rather than emotionally, an action movie that almost runs out of breath. Jobson's own authorial touches include a literal cliffhanger where our hero grapples with the ledges and pipes of an Edinburgh townhouse and two encounters with a gang of Edinburgh toughs which end in greasy terror in two different ways. Less successful is a scene where two children get hold of a gun late on in the film; by this time quite a few bodies have already piled up and this pause to meditate on violence and the innocent feels unnecessary, overscored and underpowered, even if one of the kids is played by the director's daughter.

Viewed as a reasonable B-movie or a so-so A-movie, it's still Jobson's most effective film to date, capitalising on Dougray Scott's smooth villainy, fluent action sequences and some nicely gothic shots of Edinburgh. It also shows a certain ethical sturdiness that seems quaint in these exploitative times; it may be hip as old boots, but in New Town Killers, no transgression goes unpunished in the end.

It's only when the characters stop and deliver monologues about the class divide that the film flags – Jobson appears to have Beethoven's ear for the way people talk, and the philosophical exchanges between alpha male and his beta quarry have all the sparkle of a mortgage application. Still, provided you close your ears when anyone speaks for longer than 30 seconds, you'll have a grand time.

• Release details to come