Jonny Lee Miller plays Denis, a rich pilot with a pretty pregnant wife, Valerie (Paloma Baeza) whose life is turned upside down when a thief breaks into their humble home and maliciously shoots Valerie and leaves Dennis to cope with the lasting sadness of her murder. Denis is not satisfied when Valerie's killer, notorious thief Ricky Barnes (Andy Serkis), is thrown into an Alcatraz style prison for 20 years. For Denis, this sentence isn't enough; as he achingly muses, if he were given the option of visiting his wife for 2 hours once a week, a month or even once a year, that would be better than what he has now
nothing. He cannot get past his need for revenge; not even his baby girl, delivered by C-section, can coax him out of this fog. And so he devises a plan to get himself thrown into the same high-security prison as Barnes, and get his revenge.
Revenge is the central theme of this fantastic film, written by Nick Perry and directed by Gillies MacKinnon. It isn't always an edge-of-your-seat drama, more it is an intrinsic look into the creation, hungering and devouring need for revenge
. The high-stakes drama comes in the last half hour or so, when Denis's plan is tangible as he gets thrown into Barnes's prison. The film doesn't try to show that light exists at the end of the tunnel, or that every cloud has a silver lining. Denis's thirst for reprisal is depressing; he has such tunnel-vision that not even his baby girl and the hint of a fresh start can coax him out of his ebb. And the really sad thing is that as we watch Denis strive toward his realized vengeance, we as the viewer know that what comes after he succeeds is not going to be pretty
he will be left with nothing, no life, nothing to drive him, just the realization of all that he has lost. So while rooting for Denis to get payback on the evil Ricky Barnes, there is also a devastating knowledge that things will only get worse from here on in.
Johnny Lee Miller is a relatively unknown actor who never made good on his break-out performance in the film "Trainspotting"; if he is known at all, it is as Angelina Jolie's first ex-husband whom she constantly says she regrets divorcing. Miller doesn't always captivate and command the screen, but he is adequate in this lead role as a tough, driven lover whose sadness is really eating him alive. The real star in this film is the wicked Andy Serkis, best known for his role as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films and as the monkey in another Jackson film "King Kong". Surprise, surprise; Serkins can actually act sans the tight-blue lycra and CGI wires his brilliance is measured by his loathsomeness and trust me, it's always at breaking point!
Great little straight to video gem that would go totally unnoticed if it wasn't always on cable television.
