What's On In London
Often the tail end of a dying cinematic trend produces some unexpected
results. Mr In-Between, a curiously off-kilter addition to the moribund
London gangster cycle, may lack the slick production design, mockney
mannerisms and stylised violence of so many of its lock, stock predecessors,
but it offers a refreshingly unexpected fusion of existential philosophy and
gangster chic that's ambitiously pitched as a Faustian battle for one man's
soul.
Delicately handling the philosophical underpinnings of Neil Cross's 1998 novel, cinematographer-turned-director Paul Sarossy takes this story of a heroin-addicted hitman (Andrew Howard) who falls in love with an old school classmate he once had a crush on (Geraldine O'Rawe) and crafts it into a gangster flick more interested in Jean Paul Sartre than Ben Sherman.
Delving into the realm of the horror movie, Mr In-Between delivers a strangely disturbing vision of London's underworld where the flames of purgatorial suffering never stop burning. With a terrific performance by David Calder as the boss - known only as 'The Tattooed Man' because of the gallery of Munch-like faces he has inked onto his corpulent flesh, one for every man, woman or child he's ever killed - Mr In-Between teases out its familiar story into a Faustian allegory in which choice, free will and fate leads its central characters through as many graveyards as pubs in a drugged-up haze of unreality. Although hampered by an occasional lack of faith in its mission (as much as result of its low budget origins as any pusillanimity on the part of the cast), Mr In-Between still manages to prove that genre filmmaking doesn't always have to be generic.
City Life Magazine
"Don't mess with Mr In-Between" goes the old song, and it's solid advice for
anyone coming into contact with this film's anti-hero Jon (Howard): a
psychotic, clinically efficient hit-man working for a shadowy Machiavellian
bigwig (Calder). Jon has always been ice-blooded and ruthless, but a chance
meeting with a childhood girlfriend (O'Rawe) awakens his long-dormant dreams
of another life, and he starts to be tormented by pangs of conscience. To
say that things end badly would be an understatement. This debut from
long-time Atom Egoyan cinematographer Sarossy 'accentuates the negative' at
almost every opportunity, holding its nerve for a climax of quite stunning
bleakness. But who said the road to perdition was going to be a cakewalk?
Get ready for the most bracingly powerful British movie you'll see all year.
FHM review
Hitman crosses satanic mob boss - the middle-aged Calder, whose shirtless dance is the most disturbing since David Brent strut his stuff. Imaginative, disturbing but relentlessly grim.
In a nutshell? : Lock Stock meets Angel Heart as an East End gangster struggles to keep it 'real'.
What’s the story? : Andrew Howard plays Jon, a cold-hearted hitman who could have Vinnie Jones for breakfast. But this is no Lock Stock comedy caper. A serial killing automaton, hooked on charlie and smack, Jon is torn between loyalty to his satanic boss - the Tattooed man - and childhood sweetheart Cathy. Seeking redemption for his soul he is Mr In-Between.
Best Line?: "You don't want to be near me. Bad things happen to people."
Carnage?: Definitely not for the squeamish as our anti-hero gets busy with the sawn-off, a drill and a briefcase full of torture devices.
Maxim Magazine
Jon (Howard) is a hitman in the employ of the Tattooed Man (Calder), a
gangster who makes the Marquis de Sade look like Dale Winton. A chance
meeting with two old school friends - Andy and Cathy - prompts Jon to
question his life of murder, leading to a bitter confrontation with his
employer and a finale so grim it should come with a health warning.
Empire magazine review
What this adaptation of Neil Cross' novel lacks in budget, it certainly makes up for in directorial style and production design. First-time helmer Sarossy - Atom Egoyan's regular cinematographer - secures a classy, distinctive look but his grip on narrative is weak, particularly in the final half-hour, as simmering pretensions come to the boil when hitman Jon (Howard) seeks philosophical and religious redemption.
The film is at its best conveying Jon's internal/external sense of 'in-betweenness' - he inhabits a moral and physical no man's land that stretches from his boss's underground lair to his married friends' high rise home - but falters over the love triangle subplot as his deadened emotions wake up in the presence of Cathy (O'Rowe). A healthy dose of black humour reinforces the impact of the violence to create an odd, self-enclosed, parallel world where plot coincidences become credible tricks of fate.
Film Review Magazine
Offering a fresh take on the usual British gangster movie clichés, this
vivid adaptation of Neil Cross¹s novel is not for the faint of heart. Indeed
anyone of a nervous disposition would be well advised to give it a wide
berth, as it combines visceral action with a dark and disturbing sense of
foreboding that permeates every frame.
Jon (Howard) is a cool and intimidating underworld enforcer who carries out his duties with grim efficiency. After he has done what he has been sent to do he conscientiously cleans up after himself in marigolds and floral apron leaving no clues and only the bloodied remains of his hapless victim as evidence of his visit. These occasional moments of sly humour help off-set the violent imagery that never seems too far away, a pervasive atmosphere that proves the films finest quality.
Jon works for The Tattooed Man (Calder), an erudite and cultured individual whose amorality is only matched by his imaginative methods of expressing it. Every one of the lives he has taken is recorded in painstaking detail, added to the faces of the dead recorded on his body. But Jon remains the film¹s most fascinating character, played with a chilling impassivity by Andrew Howard who gradually reveals the tortured soul behind the menacing facade through his expressive eyes.
So far, so interesting. Where it all starts to unravel is in the last third of the plot, as Jon embraces his lost humanity as he falls for the wife (O¹Rawe) of a boyhood friend. The momentary tenderness to which the story surrenders itself here also robs it of its momentum. Fascinating details remain, but the promise of the set-up remains unfulfilled. That said it is a genuinely unsettling drama which insinuates an air of gloom upon the viewer, and delivers shocks and gruesome thrills while showing surprisingly little on screen.
Director Paul Sarossy is better known as a successful cinematographer
working most notably with Atom Egoyan and plays to his strengths with a
film that is as visually arresting as it is darkly memorable, undeniably
flawed but possessing considerable cult potential.
Anwar Brett
Total Film Magazine
Atom Egoyan's regular DoP Paul Sarossy makes his directing debut with a
gritty British thriller that eschews Lock Stock's Mockney clichés.
Based on the book by Neil Cross, Mr In-Between is Jon (Andrew Howard), a hit-man who routinely tortures and murders for David Calder's tattooed gay gangster. Traumatised by nightmares, Jon's conscience is further pricked by a chance meeting with old friend Andy (Andrew Tiernan), who brings him home to meet wife Cathy (Geraldine O'Rawe) and their young daughter. Jon and Cathy soon become lovers, but he's powerless to stop her being dragged into his violent and savage world.
Working on a tight budget with little-known actors, Sarossy turns in an intense, reflective yarn with a troubled anti-hero cut from the same cloth as Jean Reno's Léon. Be warned, though: Peter Waddington's script sloshes with sadism and squalor, dealing in the kind of people you'd cross the street to avoid.
City Life
Mr In-Between.
- Mister, eh? Not like this column to stand on ceremony.
Allow me to elucidate. Mr In-Between is a film. And an extremely weird,
portentous one at that.
- Ooh. How so?
Well, it's a dark psychological thriller adapted from a novel by Neil Cross,
about a brutal professional killer retained by a mysterious tattooed man who
may or may not be The Devil, and who may or may not live under a bridge on
London's Brick Lane. It's a bit like the movie equivalent of Joy Division
with a script by Goethe and a soundtrack by Nick Cave.
- Umm...chilling. What happens next?
Our cold assassin chances to meet a childhood sweetheart, triggering
existential dilemmas for the pair of them.
- Cool. And are there fistfights and swearwords and rutting and tits?
Metaphysical ponderings seem to be the movie's leitmotif. Plus pained
musings on the scope and grip of evil. And torture.
- Ah. And which Hollywood heavyweights head the cast?
Oh, you and your incorrigible joshing. For one, the film is British, for
two, it's dirt cheap, and for three, its cast is ripe with almost-knowns.
Andrew Howard plays anti-hero hit-man Jon, while Geraldine O'Rawe depicts
the erstwhile belle.
- Right then, help me out here. Do I want to go and see this, or play it
safe with American Pie: The Wedding?
The thing is - and this is quite hard to explain - it's quite difficult to
tell if this is a good film or a complete load of tosh. So it kind of
depends on whether you want an unflinching excoriation of the soul freighted
with gothic despair, or...
- Or some jumped-up film about a hitman, right?
Tsk. You are a philistine pure and pure. Desist and leave.
