Stephen Frears's directorial career has been uneven, to say the least, swinging from comprehensive hits such as My Beautiful Laundrette, Dirty Pretty Things and The Queen to directionless dross of the ilk of Sammy and Rosie Get Laid or Mary Reilly. This gangland thriller is thankfully one of the former, i.e. where Frears gets the angle of approach of his take right.What we get is John Hurt, an impassive streak of nicotine and dull malice as a hitman, and Tim Roth, still fairly freshly out of Made in Britain's juvenile thug boots, as his hooliganish little sidekick, escorting Terence Stamp's cryptically self-assured grass across the plains of Spain to meet his maker.
It's a brutal, po-facedly laconic road movie that would be happy with Peckinpah at the helm and Warren Oates as the lead, and would hardly seek to deny the influence. An existential undercurrent constantly tugs at the foundations of the dialogue, and while it never really ends up delivering on what that promises, the journey is studded with enough craftmanship and invention to reward sticking along.
7/10
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