2 out of 5

Directed by: Ben Wheatley

I hope this isn’t what I waited for.  The mundanity I can deal with, and even think Down Terrace makes a wonderful application of it, showing us a very bumbling, homegrown look at “mob” life in Brighton, the camera rarely leaving the focus family’s home and allowing casual conversations about who betrayed whom to snake in and out of gabber about moment by moment points of interest.  What I can’t deal with is the mumblecore, lightly scripted approach.  I do understand its use here, as an inversion of the typical crime flick, where every scene is Hollywood tense, but I loathe the way mumblecore – and Down Terrace – purposefully allow the wandering to feel wandering.  Improv definitely has its place; when it’s too open-ended, though, you end up getting several small beats instead of any real punchline, and more often, they’re not even beats, they’re just filler until the scripted bits are to be delivered.

Here, the general beats are: father Bill (Robert Hill) gets out of prison, tasking his mentally questionable son Karl (Robin Hill) and caring but judging wife Maggie (Julia Deakin) with assistance in sniffing out the rat that put him there.  Then they talk about drugs, and cake, and crisps, and family for about sixty minutes, until some misunderstandings / rash actions escalate finger-pointing and what will be will be.

I’ve been reading about Ben Wheatley since Kill List and have been desperate to see his films, their minimalism and visual precision of much appeal.  Down Terrace was not the expression of this I was expecting, although I appreciate that it was his first film post a TV stint, plus being a very low budget affair, and so his approach would probably have been different from his later projects.  While watching, much of the bleak comedy came through – the narrow, narrow focus of the movie, stripping away most of the crime context to just those few conversations in the house makes it ridiculously mundane, and makes the non-crime conversations equally ridiculous, like a challenge to take this family seriously – but I had trouble laughing at it, not enjoying the mumble-mumble camera-stumbles-into-the-next-scene shooting style.  This lack of connection between intent and enjoyment of that intent may be a symptom of a first viewing; I can appreciate how this could become hilarious once you know what to expect.  However, if this does turn out to be the Ben Wheatley I waited for, as I proceed to his other films, I’m not sure I’ll be invested enough for that second viewing.

Down Terrace is a worthwhile concept, isolating a revenge tale to almost all of its inbetween moments, save the end results.  And robbed of that build-up (and scored to chummy, down-home folk songs), it’s interesting how little impact those end results have.  From afar, this makes for a pretty funny film.  But your appreciation of it while watching is a variable, and mine ended up being a pretty low value one.