Employed as Brendan (John Hannah)’s driver, Marley (Frederick Schmidt) also acts as his hired thug and one night his duties involve punishing a Romanian drug dealer. He encounters a young woman Ana (Ana Ularu) who, in trying to protect her small daughter, accidentally has her throat slashed by the machete Marley is wielding. Her daughter watches her die from under the bed. Marley goes to prison and is haunted by Ana’s ghost over the intervening years as she watches him vigilantly and puts into his head that he must find and protect the young girl. Once released Marley tries to go straight but almost irresistibly, in his quest to find Ana’s daughter, is drawn to his old ways. Eventually he is told that Brenda’s brother Jimmy has adopted the girl but that she has run away so he is being hired to find her. When he does, he discovers she is being used as a marker for a debt and about to be sold to the highest bidder. Marley is drawn into ever-darker, more violent and sordid revelations and he is guided throughout by the hand of the ghost of Ana.
Written and directed by Justin Edgar and shot low-budget in Birmingham, this is a fast-paced film noir with menacing performances from an impressive cast. A suitably edgy original music score by Paul Saunderson accompanies the action.
Justin Edgar’s feature documentary Notes on Blindness won last year’s prize for best documentary at the British Independent Film Awards.
See it:
Sunday, 25th June 2050 Cineworld
Tuesday, 27th June 2050 Cineworld
Mary is a longstanding writer with publications in The Scotsman and a number of independent travel logs and blogs. She has written professionally as part of her 40 year career in education and for pleasure.
