Discover Top Posts Tagged with #down terrace

Down Terrace | Ben Wheatley | 2009

#Down Terrace #Ben Wheatley

Down Terrace | Ben Wheatley | 2009

#Down Terrace #Ben Wheatley

Down Terrace | Ben Wheatley | 2009

#Down Terrace #Ben Wheatley

Film Journal

"Down Terrace" by Ben Wheatley

#down terrace #film journal

Down Terrace, directed by Ben Wheatley (2009)

Never let it be said that British crime films exist on a straight line. Much like Dead Man’s Shoes, Down Terrace is more concerned with a grungy, normalized world, a middle class, at best, lineage that never has a chance to reach toward style or riches because they are unattainable. Rural council housing rather than an expected urban affluence. Into this literal and figurative house a dynamic of paranoia spurred by a recent short jail sentence for a father and son is created, everyone looking for an answer on who talked. The total dysfunction is humorous in a way that seems distinctly British to these ignorant American eyes, a style made up of only the blackest laughs, semi-professional killers unable to take out targets because they have their son for the day. The mistrust surges into a Stalinist fervor, and any association or knowledge is grounds for death. The introduction of a pregnant former girlfriend of the son is such a problem because of her interloper status. There’s rarely a moment outside the titular terrace where someone isn’t getting killed, planning a killing, or surviving an attempt on their life. The living space itself isn’t free from this, but there’s a familiarity there. The son declaring his intention to move out of the house into his own family life is unthinkable. And the mom and dad fearing the newcomer isn’t nonsensical. When you’re closing ranks this fast and with these methods, trying to reestablish relations is just asking for it.

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