Gritty and British nearly always add up to a successful viewing for me. I love films, shorts or series based on real and harrowing events in the lives of people from my own homeland.
This tends to make me very accepting of the varying production standards and levels of talent on show but, unfortunately, "Beaten" falls way below many other such art in the same vein.
The acting is inconsistent. From the sublime handling of a difficult subject, to the GCSE drama levels of hammy. But sometimes the writing is such that Pacino would be crying on the inside whilst delivering the poorer than first draft dialogue.
The twist is obvious after a certain point, but I don't hold that against it as the "twist" is perhaps the most overused plot device in modern film. When a tale is worth telling, why the reluctance to let the reality be the intriguing factor? And twists, for me, have no place at all in my favourite genre.
To say this would be been improved by Robson duetting with Jerome is unfortunately how far this one fell short.
