Director: George Isaac
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
So similar is this overegged cops and robbers thriller to the recent Welcome to the Punch that it wouldn’t have come as a huge shock to see that film’s crew setting up in the corner of the frame. Rufus Sewell is the detective on the trail of Toby Stephens’ jewel thief who enlists the help of Gabriel Byrne’s kingpin, who sees Stephens as a rival for his turf. It’s reasonably admirable in the way we’re chucked straight in to the middle of this situation without any fuss or preamble, and for a little while it looks like something interesting could be developing. It also does that thing Punch did so well of making London look sensational, but it comes unstuck when trying to live up to its title in a second half that becomes increasingly desperate for attention. A sprawling cast gets sucked in to a labyrinthine narrative driven by an overbearing score, and alarm bells go off when a plot point seems to reference LA Confidential. When it actually has the gall to follow through on it, it becomes glaringly obvious that this is a movie with nothing more to offer.
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