Ted Lewis wrote "Plender" after the success of Get Carter and as I understand it offered it to Mike Hodges the director to film as a follow up but Hodges was busy with other projects and it had to wait 35 years until Eric Barbier took it on.
The book is an unrelentingly bleak story of the seedy underworld of Hull and its environs with elements of class and local power politics, so I was interested to see how a French film maker would depict it. In the event he completely changed the story retaining only one or two characters and scenes from the book. The dvd has an interview with the director in which he says he is a Ted Lewis fan and has read all his books but then fails to explain why he discarded Lewis' story in favour of his own.
So we must forget the book and consider the film on its own merits. Clovis Cornillac is splendidly sinister as Plender and the rest of the cast act well in their roles. Olga Kurylenko appears nude as per the publicity but her scenes are very brief.
Barbier's rewritten story is pretty good with plenty of tension and plot twists and the photography and general direction are also well up to par.
I particularly liked the sets at the beginning of the staircase to Vincent's studio and towards the end of the abandoned asylum.
The book is an unrelentingly bleak story of the seedy underworld of Hull and its environs with elements of class and local power politics, so I was interested to see how a French film maker would depict it. In the event he completely changed the story retaining only one or two characters and scenes from the book. The dvd has an interview with the director in which he says he is a Ted Lewis fan and has read all his books but then fails to explain why he discarded Lewis' story in favour of his own.
So we must forget the book and consider the film on its own merits. Clovis Cornillac is splendidly sinister as Plender and the rest of the cast act well in their roles. Olga Kurylenko appears nude as per the publicity but her scenes are very brief.
Barbier's rewritten story is pretty good with plenty of tension and plot twists and the photography and general direction are also well up to par.
I particularly liked the sets at the beginning of the staircase to Vincent's studio and towards the end of the abandoned asylum.