Down Terrace

Although America is the undisputed king of gangster movies, there have been other great ones from around the world including Britain which has produced such classics as Get Carter, The Long Good Friday, Brighton Rock and Gangster No. 1. Aspiring to add to such a lofty list is Down Terrace, a quiet and unassuming drama about a father and son, Bill and Karl, who, following Karl's acquittal of an unspecified offence, pick up the reins of the criminal empire with a run in Brighton. It is never made clear exactly what illicit business they run, but it is safe to say that it is something to with drugs as marijuana seems to be easily obtainable and the characters frequently dissolve some sort of narcotic in water a little like an Alka-Seltzer or paracetamol.

This is not exactly The Godfather as the family operate from a very comfortable and domestic terraced house where Bill, his wife Maggie and 34 year old son Karl wonder who it was that turned grass and betrayed them. Although Karl is understandably fuming, there is still money to be made at political contacts, in the form of a local councillor, to keep onside and probe for information.

On the face of it, this looks like a rather cosy domestic drama but people keep disappearing and Karl contemplates leaving home and settling down with his heavily pregnant girlfriend. For the time being though, he is quite content to stay the titular address and listen to his dad playing folk songs on the guitar and friends pop around for a chat and a cup of tea.

It is quite clear though that everything is not well as tensions between Karl and his father begin to escalate and, with friends and associates going missing, it is only a matter of time before those tensions that are bubbling under the surface turn into something extremely violent.


When someone mentions 'gangster film', you immediately have images of sharp suited men with money stashed away, a ready supply of firearms and, at some point, an orgy of violence in which enemies are dispatched. Down Terrace goes against all expectations as a blackly comic drama which is more akin to The Royle Family than Goodfellas. So much of the film is left ambiguous that it requires a great deal of work on the viewer's part to work out exactly where people's loyalties lie.

Starring real-life father and son Robert and Robin Hill as Bill and Karl and Julia Deakin as Maggie, this has a real authenticity to it and you actually believe in the characters as they speak and act so naturally it's as if this was a gangster film directed by Ken Loach or Mike Leigh. The script, by Robin Hill and Ben Wheatley (who also directs) is a clever and offbeat piece of writing which moves from discussions about how London will react to the downturn in profits to questions about when Karl will get round to doing some decorating.

This isn't a film that reaches out, grabs you by the throat and says "watch me!", but something that moves quietly along at a fairly sedate pace with events unfolding quite quietly and in an understated manner so you really have to pay attention to the inflections in people's voices and their body language as Bill and Karl try to unmask the traitor. As such, it draws you in extremely slowly but surely so that, by the time the major events take place, you are fully involved in proceedings.

The Disc

Extra Features
The commentary, by Ben Wheatley and Robin Hill, is an informal and interesting talk through the film and, although they do get a little self congratulatory (especially when it comes to the outstanding work done by cinematographer Laurie Rose), it is still well worth a listen and quite amusing when Robin Hill says that he had real problems addressing some of the actors by their character names as he knew them so well. You should have no problem identifying who is speaking as one appears through the left channel and the other through the right!

Throughout the commentary the two men allude to various other things that they say should be on the DVD and, as a pleasant surprise, the disc includes them all. First up is a short film by Ben Wheatley, Rob loves Kerry, which stars Robin Hill (and his father) and, in only nine minutes perfectly sums up Wheatley's style of direction with naturalistic acting and realistic sets in a domestic setting.


The acting test for Bill and Karl is only a minute long it shows the two men interacting as father and son in a similar way that they do in the main feature.

Camera Test is a four minute piece which shows the actors rehearsing whilst the director and cinematographer figure out the best angles, light sources and how to focus when there are several people in the shot.

There are two extended scenes which don't come with a commentary or introduction so you have to guess as to why they were cut down, presumably for pacing and time reasons. Additionally, there is a teaser trailer that was used for festivals.

The Amazing Wizards is an eight minute piece featuring Robin Hill and another bloke performing various tricks such as jumping over a moving car and throwing bricks through a hula hoop whilst blindfolded with varying levels of success; needless to say there are some injuries!


The Picture
As the film takes place basically in one location (the titular terraced house) which is a real location where people live, there isn't a great deal of set decoration or production design need to transform the house into the place where the Hills live. The cinematography is first class and suits the domestic setting perfectly. As Ben Wheatley says in the commentary, they employed short focus away through so that the film doesn't have a great deal of depth, keeping things extremely claustrophobic and with the characters at the centre of attention.

It appears as if the actors turned up on set in their everyday clothes and didn't really go for much in the way of wardrobe fitting or hair and make-up and apparently this was true with Robin Hill wearing most of his own clothes and people not really changing outfits a great deal throughout the fairly brief timescale.

The Sound
Fittingly for a documentary style film, the only audio track is a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo one which presents the dialogue extremely well, whether the characters are speaking softly or yelling at one another. Keeping the documentary aesthetic, there is no scored music but a nice selection of folk songs which various characters play on the guitar.


Final Thoughts
Down Terrace is an extremely British gangster film with a very domestic setting and naturalistic acting which means that you occasionally feel as if you are watching real events rather than a fictional film. Key to this is the casting of Robin Hill and his father Robert who carry their off-screen chemistry to a film set (in this case, a real house. You don't need to be a fan of gangster films to appreciate this as there is very little in the way of gratuitous violence, extreme expletives (although there is the occasional outburst) and other things that you'd associate with the gangster films of Martin Scorsese, for example. It is a fascinating drama that really draws you in so that when things do turn nasty, you are fully involved with the situation.

The disc is very good with a sharp picture, clear sound and a decent array of extra features.