A
swaggering, immature waster and petty criminal, Adam (Jack O’Connell) is the titular
‘liability.’ After crashing his
gangster stepfather Peter’s (Peter Mullan) car, Adam is forced to take on a
little job to pay for the damage; driving the gruff, taciturn Roy (Tim Roth) on a no-questions-asked
mission.
World-weary
and efficient, Roy is a professional hit man on his last job. His daughter’s getting married and he’s
lost his taste for killing. He’s
looking forward to retirement but finds the chatty, enthusiastic Adam getting
under his skin and, against his better judgement, agrees to show him the ropes.
The
easy job becomes complicated however when a beautiful and mysterious woman (Talulah
Riley)
stumbles across their woodland disposal of their target, a Russian gangster,
who they’re in the process of chopping up. Roy doesn’t like leaving witnesses; the girl has got to
go. But when she escapes with a
piece of incriminating evidence, Adam and Roy are forced into a deadly game of
cat and mouse as the secrets behind Roy’s last job and Adam’s involvement are
revealed.
A
tight, blackly comic, little Brit crime thriller with two fantastic central
performances from Tim Roth and Jack O'Connell, it’s almost inevitable that Craig
Viveiros’
second feature film, The Liability, will be compared to Stephen Frears’ 1984 thriller The Hit in which jaded assassin John
Hurt
initiated eager young novice Tim Roth in the killing game. This time round however Roth is the
seasoned veteran mentoring the eager young O’Connell and while their
partnership is just as deadly, it’s shot through with a dark, witty affection
for it’s odd couple pairing that Frears’ po-faced The Hit never managed.
While
the script by John Wrathall holds few surprises, director Viveiros wisely eschews the
temptations of Mockernee gangster movies and instead concentrates on the
budding relationship between Roth and O’Connell’s mismatched pair. Roth is as reliably great as ever as
the quiet, laconic, business-like hitman Roy while O'Connell is wonderful as
the mercurial, irritating Adam. Always the best thing in whatever
he’s in, O’Connell has charisma to burn and makes the brash, cocky chav Adam a
likable, vulnerable protagonist. There’s
a genuine warmth and humour to his relationship with Roth, their scenes
together really sing, and they're ably supported by Talulah Riley on
smouldering, vampish form as the not entirely innocent witness and the
monstrous Peter Mullan as possibly the vilest stepfather you’ve seen outside of
a Grimm fairytale.
A
fun, violent, freewheeling road/buddy/hit man hybrid movie, The Liability is a
quirky, cheerfully amoral antidote to the dodgy geezers having it large and
playing Charlie Big Potatoes in your average sub-par Guy Ritchie or Nick Love
knock-off.
David Watson
Directed by:
Written by:
Produced by:
Starring:
Genres:
Action,
Thriller
Language:
English
Runtime:
1 hour 22
minutes
Certificate:
15
UK Release Date:
Friday 17th
May
Rating:
4/5
Originally published at http://www.filmjuice.com/the-liability/
No comments:
Post a Comment