Dead Man Down - Revenge Is Sweet

Venturing into the auditorium the other night I didn't know a thing about Dead Man Down, save it starring Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace (never a bad thing). Not expecting greatness, I was therefore pleasantly surprised when I emerged two hours later having experienced a well-crafted and taut example of a revenge thriller.

The film follows Victor, played by Farrell, a member of a powerful gang headed by no-nonsense gangster Terence Howard. The film opens with Howard's character Alphonse in the midst of receiving powerful threats to the lives of him and his gang members, seemingly from an anonymous source. What we (the audience) knows that Alphonse does not, is that the threats are coming from within the gang. Victor is a man on a mission as he seeks to right a wrong done against his family several years previously. Enter Noomi Rapace's Beatrice, who like Victor, is seeking revenge for a crime committed against her - and she wants Victor's help. So follows a suspenseful thriller that has a lot going for it. The relationship between Victor and Beatrice is perhaps the most interesting element of the film. Both with their own personal demons they slowly begin to develop a relationship that gives depth to an otherwise run of the mill gang flick.

Colin Farrell, like Jason Statham, or dare I say it, Danny Dyer (shudders), as always plays Colin Farrell - the brooding alpha male who kicks ass, and gets his leg over along the way. It's a shame really because in the hands of a much better and nuanced actor, the complex character of Victor could have been explored with much greater depth. Noomi Rapace, whom first stole my heart in The Girl With the Dragoon Tattoo saga, once again proves why Hollywood is investing their time in her. She has a presence that demands attention and becomes more in this film than the stock damsel in distress, standing out as a multi-dimensional character of her own. Terence Howard is also on top form, giving us a chilling performance as the increasingly paranoid gang leader Alphonse. It's also nice to see Dominic Cooper doing well across the pond and even nicer to see a cameo from Armand Assante, playing a ruthless New York crime lord.

Dead Man Down isn't going to set the world alight. What it is though is an above average thriller with an intelligent and developed plot. My only two qualms are these. Firstly, at just over two hours the pace begins to wane slightly in the middle and we feel as if we could have reached the film's climax twenty years earlier. Secondly, Farrell's character Victor is seemingly Hungarian and we are supposed to believe he deliberately worked to Americanize his accent. The fact that Farrell's American can't help reveal the fact that he's Irish makes this supposed four year eradication of any trace of an Hungarian accent completely absurd!

If you're stuck for something to watch when all you see in your cinema listings is Iron Man or Star Trek then give Dead Man Down a watch - dodgy accents aside!