Piggy
Mild-mannered, introvert
Joe (Martin Compston) is the kind of guy who wouldn’t say “Boo!” to a
goose. In fact, he probably
doesn’t even have the balls to look the goose in the eye. Timid and shy, he’s practically a
recluse; all Joe does is go to work, come home and smoke dope. His only contact with the outside world
is his beloved brother John (Kill List’s Neil Maskell) and unrequited crush Claire (Louise Dylan).
Things are going pretty
good for a while and Joe starts to come out of his shell a little. But then a minor altercation in a pub
with some local thugs escalates and later that night John is ambushed and
murdered. Devastated by his
brother’s loss, Joe cuts himself off again, retreating back into his insular
world; lost, alone and angry. Until
Piggy (The Firm remake and current Brit-nutbag du jour Paul Anderson) turns up at his door one night.
Piggy’s an old school friend of John’s. Volatile and menacing, Piggy soon dominates the younger
man. Under Piggy’s tutelage, Joe
becomes stronger, more confident, more willing to stand up for himself. But Piggy has a plan. Piggy wants justice for John. And he’s going to help Joe to get
it. The two begin a campaign of
murderous vengeance. But just who
is Piggy and can Joe really trust him?
A would-be gritty, revenge
thriller that borrows liberally from Fight
Club, Piggy with it’s disaffected
protagonist first railing then fighting back against the scum of modern society,
obviously aspires to being a Brit Taxi Driver but feels more like a nasty riff on Death Wish. Saddled with an accent that’s more
Greenock than Green Lanes, Martin Compston’s soulful Joe is a sympathetic
enough protagonist and his performance is fine – as long as he doesn’t
speak. It’s a shame then that the
film relies on Compston’s near-constant narration. Never the most subtle of actors, Anderson overacts to such
an extent that you feel he might be ready for panto in Woking and it’s good to
see that Maskell, despite an inability to convincingly deliver a line, keeps
getting acting work.
While the film lacks
originality, Hawkes does create a nice feel of urban decay, permeating the film
with a doomy sense of menace. Piggy feels like a violent film.
And it is. Even if there’s
not that much onscreen violence.
As Piggy and Joe hunt, torture and murder John’s killers, the worst of
the mayhem coyly takes place just out of shot rendering the film’s uglier
aspects more palatable to a mainstream audience. Piggy and Joe aren’t bad guys (ok, Piggy might be), they’re
just cleaning up society. So that
makes it ok for Piggy to stamp a guy to death.
Despite a last-act ‘twist’
that somehow manages the not inconsiderable task of being both predictable and
surprising, Piggy is a nasty, repulsive little vigilante thriller
that celebrates, that gets off on, the violence it seeks to condemn.
David Watson
Written and Directed by:
Produced by:
Starring:
Genre:
Language:
English
Runtime:
1 hour 46 minutes (approx.)
Certificate:
18
UK Cinema Release Date:
Friday 4th May 2012
Rating:
2/5
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