DIRECTED BY David Mackenzie
STARRING Alastair Mackenzie, Jonathan Phillips, David Hayman
Opens May 9, Cert 15, 92 mins
Jarvis Cocker lends his voice and music to actor-turned-director David Mackenzie’s compelling Scottish psycho-thriller, a revengedriven Dogma-style road movie which redeems its rough-as-fuck feel with punky, offbeat energy. But Jarvis is just a fringe presence in Mackenzie’s genre-hopping feature debut, playing the remote and unseen pop star who has stolen the wife of anti-hero Charlie?as portrayed by Alastair Mackenzie, Monarch Of The Glen star and the director’s brother. Heading for the adulterous pair’s highland love nest with arson on his mind, the vengeful Charlie picks up Vince (Phillips), a troubled gigolo on the run from underworld heavies. But the fugitive duo’s problems really start when they break down in the wintry Scottish outback, seeking refuge in a retreat for mental patients run by the disturbingly genial Rory (Hayman).
Shot guerrilla-style on grainy digital video, Mackenzie’s feature debut is not without flaws?some of the acting is wooden and the plot full of hackneyed contrivances. But the flinty grandeur of off-season Scotland is evoked without resort to tourist-brochure clich