Glazer’s sophomore film is another that has lived in the memory, primarily for Kingsley’s psychotic performance. With the casting of James Fox and the scenes of the gangland bosses’ faces in close up, drinking grotesquely, there’s a nod to Performance in the direction. The dialogue is theatrical, expertly edited, and full of memorable lines. The actors were clearly having a ball. Glazer’s flair is obvious, even if the sum of the parts don’t quite add up to a whole. The jagged underwater sequence, the opening boulder device, H’s sense of humour, it’s a jigsaw puzzle which doesn’t quite fit together. But I did love Winstone’s final scene, being dropped off on the Harrow Road, next to Royal Oak station, a few hundred yards from where I used to live, a spot I’d walk past on a daily basis.
