Muscle. (18.)
Directed by Gerald Johnson.
Starring Cavan Clerkin, Craig Fairbrass, Polly Maberly, Lorraine Burroughs and Peter Ferdinando In black and white. Available VOD now, digital download from January 18th and blu-ray/ DVD from February 1st. 110 mins.
Writer/ director Gerald Johnson has been documenting the world of Toxic masculinity since back when the term was still a selective judgement rather than blanket dismissal. Serial killer Tony and berserk bent copper drama Hyena paced the dark streets of London. Muscle moves the focus up to a black and white Newcastle (subliminal football reference?) where a big man who's in good shape, Terry (Fairbrass), preys on little man who's out of shape, Simon (Clerkin.)
Simon has a dispiriting, Glengarry Glen Ross-type sales job working the phones and trying to get the credit card number of people in what seems like a ridiculously obvious scam. Tired of his job, his beer belly and his marriage, he decides to join a gym and get fit but almost immediately falls under the influence of ex-army personal trainer Terry (Fairbrass.) Terry sees potential in squat Simon, thinks he could be a Mr Something, and when Simon's domestic situation takes a turn for the worse he inveigles his way into his life.
Part of the beauty of the film is seeing a scammer getting taken as Simon meekly acquiesces to the same coercive sales patter he uses at work every day. He knows he's being taken but is just too British to object. The casting is perfect. Fairbrass has done forty years in hard-man roles – a recurring figure in London gangster films, he's big man in a small pond. Clerkin's is a face that is always popping up in sitcoms and crime dramas – always the support act, never the star. Off-screen they're probably both grateful for the steady work but on-screen they are primed to play characters who resent their place in the world.
The black and white photography is both lyrical and brutal: a dehumanised vision of a barren society. Nothing much happens, but its a world racked with tension. Like his protagonists, Johnson is a man whose talents and skills don't seem to fit. He's a talented filmmaker but neither the British film industry nor the British film public have yet found much use for him. Muscle suffers from the occasional moments of plodding literalness and some cop-out ambiguity towards the end but there is a demented intensity to this study of berk masculinity and a toxic civilisation that demands attention.
Directed by Gerald Johnson.
Starring Cavan Clerkin, Craig Fairbrass, Polly Maberly, Lorraine Burroughs and Peter Ferdinando In black and white. Available VOD now, digital download from January 18th and blu-ray/ DVD from February 1st. 110 mins.
Writer/ director Gerald Johnson has been documenting the world of Toxic masculinity since back when the term was still a selective judgement rather than blanket dismissal. Serial killer Tony and berserk bent copper drama Hyena paced the dark streets of London. Muscle moves the focus up to a black and white Newcastle (subliminal football reference?) where a big man who's in good shape, Terry (Fairbrass), preys on little man who's out of shape, Simon (Clerkin.)
Simon has a dispiriting, Glengarry Glen Ross-type sales job working the phones and trying to get the credit card number of people in what seems like a ridiculously obvious scam. Tired of his job, his beer belly and his marriage, he decides to join a gym and get fit but almost immediately falls under the influence of ex-army personal trainer Terry (Fairbrass.) Terry sees potential in squat Simon, thinks he could be a Mr Something, and when Simon's domestic situation takes a turn for the worse he inveigles his way into his life.
Part of the beauty of the film is seeing a scammer getting taken as Simon meekly acquiesces to the same coercive sales patter he uses at work every day. He knows he's being taken but is just too British to object. The casting is perfect. Fairbrass has done forty years in hard-man roles – a recurring figure in London gangster films, he's big man in a small pond. Clerkin's is a face that is always popping up in sitcoms and crime dramas – always the support act, never the star. Off-screen they're probably both grateful for the steady work but on-screen they are primed to play characters who resent their place in the world.
The black and white photography is both lyrical and brutal: a dehumanised vision of a barren society. Nothing much happens, but its a world racked with tension. Like his protagonists, Johnson is a man whose talents and skills don't seem to fit. He's a talented filmmaker but neither the British film industry nor the British film public have yet found much use for him. Muscle suffers from the occasional moments of plodding literalness and some cop-out ambiguity towards the end but there is a demented intensity to this study of berk masculinity and a toxic civilisation that demands attention.
