Get Lucky: All's Fair in Love and Crime

Thieves who steal from thieves. Love and romance - of a fashion - amongst the gritty London underworld. Car chases, boat chases, beat-ups, close calls and shodowns in abandoned lots. They're familiar calling cards but in this plucky, if somewhat demanding little thriller, they don't lose much for all their familiarity.

Lucky is a small time criminal and he's happy just getting by until he agrees to look after some counterfeit money for a friend who is in a bit of trouble with the law Two months go by without a word from him so Lucky burns the 'funny money' to avoid problems for himself. The resulting fire means a trip to the emergency room where he meets Bridget and his charm has her agreeing to go out with him. Their date goes well until the end when two hoods bundle him into the back of their car. It appea

rs that they had bought the 'funny money' from Lucky's friend and they want it back - all £150,000 or Lucky will end up like his friend. Lucky needs to score big so he teams up with an old mate who is planning a big casino heist with a couple of other gangsters who's day job is collecting protection money for 'Mr Big'. The are looking to earn a bit of money 'on the side'. The heist goes almost according to plan but with one small problem - there's minimal cash and the rest is in bonds. It all starts to go wrong immediately. A prostitute who they have hired steals the bonds and the getaway car is stolen. Worse is yet to come. The two gangsters have not done their homework and they've actually just robbed 'Mr Big's casino. Their only chance to avoid their boss's severe retribution is to get the stuff back.

Director Sacha Bennett works the script (by the accomplished TJ Ramini and Walter Taylaur) with appreciable gusto, and whilst the acting is decidedly uneven, diminutive lead Luke Treadway as Lucky and a several of the "bit players" stand out in their respective spaces in the plot.

If you're not that used to the dialogue, this film may take a second screening to get used to but, its worth it if you like fast-paced action, spiced with a little sex (including a humourous incident involving a prostitute and one of the robbers).

In other words, its the perfect candidate for Testosterone Theatre. Sit back and dig in.

The Angels' Share: A Superior Malt

The background of The Angels' Share, his latest collaboration with the leftwing Scottish lawyer turned screenwriter Paul Laverty, is the widespread, seemingly permanent youth unemployment and the despair and communal erosion it engenders. But the realistic and humanistic tone is bracingly optimistic, and it's one of the 75-year-old Loach's more robust films.

The movie begins with a group of criminals brought together by chance in the manner ofThe Usual Suspects and gradually modulates into a heist comedy that combines two classic Scottish films, both directorial debuts from different eras, Alexander Mackendrick's Whisky Galore! (1949) and Bill Forsyth'sThat Sinking Feeling (1980).

The young offenders, played by non-professional actors who perform brilliantly under Loach's sympathetic direction, are introduced at Glasgow's City Court when pleading guilty to a variety of crimes. Their demeanour is playfully contrasted with the solemnity of the bewigged judge, and most of the offences are quite minor – petty theft, defacing public statues, drunkenness in a public place. However, one of the defendants, Robbie (Paul Brannigan), is up for grievous bodily harm, and he's only saved from another custodial sentence because his girlfriend is eight months pregnant.

All of them are given community service and are fortunate to come under the supervision of Harry (John Henshaw, a familiar face from TV drama and the occasional movie), a middle-aged, working-class Mancunian who forges a bond with Robbie.The unemployed Robbie, determined to go straight and be a good father, appears to have everything against him – a history of violence (there's a revealing razor scar on his left cheek) and his girlfriend's brutal father, who's determined to get him out of Glasgow and away on his own, whether by force or bribery. Harry could be his salvation.

 Robbie and the companions hear of an extremely valuable old whisky being auctioned at a Highland distillery and plan an ultra lo-tech heist to give them the nest-egg they need. The unwitting participants in their plot are Harry, who has encouraged Robbie's newfound passion, and a sophisticated broker who deals in rare whisky .

The entire cast is excellent but, in addition to those already mentioned, have to give special praise to Gary Maitland as the uncannily canny comic relirf Albert, and the lovely Jasmin Riggins as "to-the-point" kleptomaniac Mo. In the lead role of Robbie, Paul Brannigan mixes rage, hope, self-loathing, swagger and wit as deftly as I've ever seen.

So there is politics underlying every aspect of this funny, warm-hearted, deftly plotted film, and we fervently wish for the caper planned by this endearing quartet to succeed. The film's title, The Angels' Share, refers to the 2% (or so) of whisky that evaporates in the cask each year. An interesting item of distilling lore, it's initially a joke about capitalist exploitation that turns at the end of the film into a metaphor for generosity and gratitude.

**Thanks to David Morrison for allowing me to attend his film screening series. The movies are shown every weekend (Fridays and Saturdays ) at Kingston's Liguanea Club (and sometimes at Red Bones

A Little Gem from Down Under: The Hard Word

For those of us largely fed on myopic Hollywood fare, this 2002 gem from Australia is a rare and welcome treat. That fact that it effortlessly blends a bunch of conventional genres (heist thriller, prison drama, social commentary, psychological exercise) without tiring the viewer is further to its credit.

Three brothers, Dale (Guy Pearce), Shane (joel Edgerton) and Mal (Damien Richardson) are mysteriously sprung from jail on the orders of the state governor. Their new-found freedom procvesto be short-lived however, and they discover that they are pawns in a game of greed and deception (what else?) that also involves Dale's wife (Rachel Griffith) and a crooked lawyer (more on him later.)

First-time director Scott Roberts shows a deft hand in bringing his own script to life. Both violence and a considerable level of raunch are delivered without the lurid edge that often attends the features from the big-budget guys. Its almost done matter-of-fact.... almost.

The cast is superb, but three really stand out. Pearce, as the unofficial but unquestioned leader is the kind of career criminal to almost give the "profession" a good name; he blends gut instinct with literary appreciation and accepts that violence is a part of his chosen life, but without courting it. Griffith, as his wife Carol, is equally smart, feisty, and strong-willed and guided by her own moral compass, which entails sleeping with Frank (Robert Taylor), the greedy and amoral lawyer and fixer who's been stringing everybody along for his own ends. The few scenes in which the three of them are together are really priceless.  

By film's end, everyone has pretty much gotten what's coming to them, and at the risk of giving the final scene away, I'll say that if you're looking for any signs of reform amongst the brothers, you'd best look elsewhere, like to the skies. If you're looking for a smart, taut, pull-no-punches thriller, then look Down Under. This one's it.

Idris Elba: Is Not a Criminal, He only Plays them in the movies

Okay, so we exaggerate - but only just a bit. His most high-profiling outing was as drug pusher Stringer on HBO's landmark series "The Wire" and he looked quite comfortable as part of the London underworld (opposite Gerard Butler and Thandie Newton) in Rock n' Rolla"

this time around, he's the defacto leader of a group of bank robbers. They are in and out like clockwork, leaving no evidence behind and laying low in between heists. of course, there's the lure of that proverbial "one last job" with more money at stake than ever before, suggested by a fresh-sprung former crew member (T.I., who may have earned his stripes as a producer on this flick, can't act to save his life).

The crew (including a pleasantly mature Chris Brown) also has to contend with a hardened detective (Matt Dillon)who is hell-bent on solving the case. Plus Elba's character has to cope with a crackhead sister who refuses to complete rehab.

Takers moves pretty fluidly from action to cat-and-mouse and back to action, and the foot chases in particular are quite engagingly shot. Some scenes are a bit choppy though and the final denouement left me cold.

But overall, Takers is a good weekend grab, if looking for warm-up to a night out and as for our good friend Idris - he's got Thor coming up next year. Let's see which side of the fence he's on there.