As a fan of British gangster movies I was looking forward to watching this, but this movie is so bad - one of the worst I've ever seen. The similarities to Taken in terms of plot are obvious, but that's all this has in common with that much superior effort. The direction in Freight is hit and miss and the script is terrible, it often resembles a home movie with added fireworks. Sadly some of the acting is even worse than the script. Did the director not bother with auditions? There are so many bad performances in the movie but the actors playing the twins are so bad they'll actually make you laugh, two passers-by could have been dragged in off the street who would look more comfortable in front of a camera. The best advice I can give to the actor playing Stevie is to give up and get a proper job, because he is not an actor. His brother playing Sonny may be even worse and more wooden, removing the energy out of every scene he's in with a strange anti-charisma and expressionless face. Hardly surprising to note via IMDb that other than a bit part on Channel 4 he has hardly worked since he left run of the mill daytime soap Doctors. You wonder how some actors manage to pay the rent.
Trying to look at the positives I suppose the film has it's heart in the right place, human trafficking is an evil that ruins many lives, but you have to wonder about the good that charities concerned with helping the victims of human trafficking could have done with the £2.5 million budget which Freight supposedly cost (what WAS that budget spent on, it looks like it cost a tenth of that amount). A couple of other positives, and the reason this gets two stars from me rather than one, are the performances of Billy Murray and Laura Aikman. Both actors should be free of any criticism aimed at Freight. Murray phones it in here, appears to be going through the motions and thinking about the pay cheque (just like those ambulance chasing commercials he appears in) but he is as competent as ever. Laura Aikman does well also as kidnap victim Julie. She clearly has talent, it's just a shame she ends up in duffers like this. Taking a look at the directors IMDb profile it appears he's a relative of hers (Uncle? Father?) so you can understand why she took the role on. Sadly though appearing in movies like this may only harm her future employability. St Paul may have a future as a director, but probably not as a writer, and hopefully he will do better in the future with a script created by others.
Trying to look at the positives I suppose the film has it's heart in the right place, human trafficking is an evil that ruins many lives, but you have to wonder about the good that charities concerned with helping the victims of human trafficking could have done with the £2.5 million budget which Freight supposedly cost (what WAS that budget spent on, it looks like it cost a tenth of that amount). A couple of other positives, and the reason this gets two stars from me rather than one, are the performances of Billy Murray and Laura Aikman. Both actors should be free of any criticism aimed at Freight. Murray phones it in here, appears to be going through the motions and thinking about the pay cheque (just like those ambulance chasing commercials he appears in) but he is as competent as ever. Laura Aikman does well also as kidnap victim Julie. She clearly has talent, it's just a shame she ends up in duffers like this. Taking a look at the directors IMDb profile it appears he's a relative of hers (Uncle? Father?) so you can understand why she took the role on. Sadly though appearing in movies like this may only harm her future employability. St Paul may have a future as a director, but probably not as a writer, and hopefully he will do better in the future with a script created by others.