Starring: Luke Treadaway, Iwan Rheon, Matthew Lewis, Gerard Kearns,
Vanessa Kirby, Timothy Spall, Neil Maskell, Paul Clayton
Plot: After Harvey (Treadaway) returns from a year in the slammer,
he starts plotting revenge against the bastard that set him up and got him
imprisoned – local psychopath, Steven Roper (Maskell). Getting the help of his
friends, they plan a heist that will leave Roper with nothing left in the bank
and allow them a clean and tidy getaway abroad...or so they hope.
Bringing the glitz and glamour of
Hollywood to British films is never an easy task. It worked for Hot Fuzz and, to a degree, Snatch, but British film is based mostly
around the tried and tested models of period pictures, kitchen-sink dramas and comedies
with a notable British voice. Rowan Athale’s attempt is, at times, clumsy and
jarring yet it can be forgiven for the sheer bravado of what he’s trying to
pull off. Athale has deemed Wasteland
“a British Ocean’s Eleven” which, let’s
be fair, it cannot be (Soderbergh’s film has been copied a few times since –
the most conspicuous effort being Confidence
– and it always reminds us as to how slick the 2001 all-star caper was) yet it
maintains the crisp dialogue and sharp quality that the first Ocean’s film had.
The unique idea of placing recognisable
characters from council estate-based films into a genre piece that contains an intricate
plot, twists/red-herrings and a run-of-the-mill reveal is, like the pay-off at
the end of a heist caper, an extraordinary feat. The scale of Wasteland is not substantial in any
regard yet it can, in moments, evolve beyond its limits. At points the screen
wipes that accompany the montage of planning seems tawdry but it also feels fun.
It isn’t totally unbelievable that a job like Harvey’s could be executed, nor
is it far-fetched to understand the motivation – it sometimes wanders into
territory it could get lost in but then thankfully turns back towards the workable
setting.
Blending the gritty crime story
that foregrounds Kill List’s Neil
Maskell as the crook, and the heist thriller with the motley crew of some of
Britain’s brightest new actors, manages to steer the film far away from the
family genre. It is something to be enjoyed by people aged 15 – 40 (which is
still a healthy demographic) and taken slightly more seriously that Clooney and
co’s escapades. The script is penned in the style of sombre Shane Meadows and jokey
Guy Ritchie yet adds a few diverse touches to the form of noughties
Brit-flicks. The actors embellish the dialogue with low-key acting that keeps
the film grounded to another degree; afraid of becoming a failed replica of the
heist-genre, the tone has been meticulously fine-tuned.
With no fixed way to depict the
events of a heist film, and in order to smartly show the heist in full, Athale
has chosen a structure that drifts back and forth from the interrogation of
Harvey, bloody and beaten, and the story of how he ended up in the police
station. Athale takes care not to make too many cuts from past to present,
keeping the momentum at a steady pace whenever possible. Waiting for the
inevitable “reveal” does undermine some of the drama and tension but it’s
nothing that could be helped with the formula as it is.
Without outstretching its reach, Wasteland enjoyably creates a U.K crime
caper adequately similar Ocean’s Eleven,
Bandits and The Bank Job. It’s a shame about the title though; it has little
pertinence and could drive people away from what they may think is a gloomy
hard-boiled drama.
***
By Piers McCarthy. Also posted on LiveForFilms
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