Review of Heartless (2010) by Tom P — 29 Jul 2010

Do you ever get sick of reading about the moral vacuity of street / urban / yoof culture in the UK and how it serially leads to mindless violence and repeated injustices? You ever wonder that perhaps the perpetrators of these crimes are borderline inhumane? Well Heartless goes some way to explain what might be going on.

Without giving too much away, we have a navel-gazing protagonist with a birthmark on his head--lets call him Gorbachev--who discovers that a gang of pyromanic demons are responsible for acts of random violence on the streets of East London. Gorbachev meets the head of the demonoids--let's call him Beelzebub--in some run down council estate which inevitably leads to dark thrills and spills.

There is a slow pace to the film which works well to begin with, but doesn't sustain enough tension until the Fit really heads the Shan later, particularly as there are occasional scenes of treacly sentimentally which had my fighting back the zzzzzzzs. In the first 45-mins we are treated to a thorough characterisation of Gorbachev and in particular his mental frailties: loss, weakness, paranoia etc etc. And this makes the subsequent journey he takes and the violence he encounters all the more convincing. Add to that the great interplay of themes: loss, social-breakdown, beauty-is-only-skin-deep and satan-is-a-douche-bag; and you've got yourself a great film. Furthermore, all this is set against a backdrop that is more Only Fools and Horses or The Krays than gothic thriller.

I only have one major criticism, and that is of the love sequence between Gorbachev and that French bird from Harry Potter. And it isn't the lack of tits. No, it's just plain awful. Twee. Cringing. Though looking beyond the love nonsense, there are moments in this film that completely grabbed me: it's thought-provoking, incredibly English, and highly original.