PiFan 09 Review: NEW TOWN KILLERS

Dumb as a bag of rocks and plagued with plot and logic holes you could drive a truck through, not to mention a wildly cliche and simplistic 'rich man bad, poor kid good' ethos, Richard Jobson squanders some solid technical work in his New Town Killers with a script that should never have been allowed to see the light of day and ends up with a film rendered watchable only thanks to a scenery-chewing performance from Dougray Scott as the lead baddie. New Town Killers is a film that defies any sort of internal logic whatsoever simply because if anybody behaved in a manner that made any sense at all the film could never reach it's allotted feature length run time. Examples follow.

One: Have you ever known a twenty something kid to run across rooftops five stories or so high, his run ending only when he leaps off said rooftop to see if the awning below can safely stop his fall? Because that's how this film opens. No explanation given, no context, no tie in to anything. Apparently James Anthony Pearson's Sean just likes to jump from buildings.

Two: If you're a wealthy businessman who hates the poor enough to hunt them for sport, and have recruited your next target by using an envelope full of one thousand pounds and a key to a locker supposedly containing enough money to pay off his sister's mounting debts in return for playing a 'game' over night, would you ever actually put the remaining money in the locker? Remember, you intend to kill the kid before the end of the night. Hey! Look at all the cash in the locker!

Three: If you're a second wealthy businessman up for a promotion at work and first wealthy businessman tells you that your job interview is to spend the night hunting aforementioned twentysomething kid through the streets, would you go? And, after going, would you be surprised when first wealthy businessman turns out to be a psycho?

Four: If you're the first wealthy businessman and you discover the twenty something kid in your office ready to send an email containing proof of all your past misdeeds to everybody you know and you happen to be holding a gun in your hand, do you a) shoot the damn kid in the head, or b) have a lengthy conversation that ends with you putting the gun down and behaving as though the kid's got all the leverage. Remember: Bullets travel faster than fingers.

Five: Have you ever felt the need to boobytrap your staircase at home with trip wires that send chandeliers crashing down from the ceiling?

Guess which movie contains all of these inanities, plus more? Bingo! It's the New Town Killers! This is really all you need to know.