Face

A group of gangsters carry out a well-planned heist in London. But the take is smaller than they had hoped - and one of them turns traitor and is trying to kill the others and take their share of the loot.
After being screened at the Venice film festival this year, someone described ”Face” as ”Reservoir Dogs” meets ”Long Good Friday”, which was a description Antonia Bird herself had nothing against. According to her, if her film was going to be compared to other genre films, then there were far worse comparisons that could have been made.
”Reservoir Dogs” is about a bloody robbery that goes completely wrong, and the equally bloody follow up when the robbers try to work out what went wrong, and who betrayed them. ”Long Good Friday” - one of the best gangster films ever made in England - is about a gangster king pin in London, who suddenly discovers that someone is trying to undermine his position through murder, robbery, and assassinations.
We find elements of these two classics in ”Face”, which is Bird's welcome return to English film after her unsuccessful American tour, which resulted in the mediocre ”Mad Love” ”Face” puts her literally back on her mother's street. It is a film with a raw and pulsating street feel. Bird has made use of London environments in a very advantageous manner and her characters belong in this setting in the same way that Scorsese's characters, for example, belong in New York's Little Italy.
She also displays an unexpected talent for staging frequent and violent shoot-out scenes. In the sequence where the gangsters are surprised in an apartment by police and have to shoot their way out, there is a boldness, and realism approaching Michael Mann's achievement in ”Heat”, and the break-in and escape form the police station at the end of the film has a desperate realism that is almost comical. It should be noted, however, that Bird's treatment of violence is always raw and unglamorous.
Moreover ”Face” isn't only an exciting gangster film. Through the protagonist Ray's anxiety, and doubt in connection with his actions, and his memories of his days as a political radical, we are given insight into the political climate of today's England. Ray is played by Robert Carlyle, who, after many years as a brilliant but rather unknown character actor, has had his international breakthrough with ”Trainspotting” and ”The Full Monty”
Gunnar Rehlin

Premiärstatus
Nordisk premiär: Medverkande
Robert Carlyle, Ray Winstone, Damon Albarn: Producent
Elinor Day, David M. Thompson: Manus
Roman Bennett: Foto
Fred Tammes: Musik
Andy Roberts: Talat språk
English