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With a different take on the typical crime family drama, Down Terrace takes a slightly more laid back approach to the genre with plenty of tea-drinking and casual smoking to tone down the underlying tension brought about by trying to identify the unknown informant responsible for sending Bill (father) and Karl (son) to prison.

Immediately after being released from jail for unknown reasons, Bill and Karl return home to Maggie–the mother of the house. Confusion erupts when the dysfunctional family struggles to identify the unknown informant. Could it be the family friend? What about the dirty cop they pay for intelligence?

As the plot unfolds Karl’s ex-girlfriend, Vilda, shows up at their doorstep pregnant with his child. Unhappy about the thought of being a grandfather, Bill does his best to trick Karl into thinking that the kid isn’t his. Maggie is the quiet one in the family...

You have to admire filmmakers who scrape together the money to produce a feature film with a unique point of view. The films go largely unnoticed, play on the festival circuit and if lucky, land a cable or home video deal, widening the exposure. As a result, some interesting gems surface but it’s always hit or miss.

That phrase also applies to Ben Wheatley’s Down Terrace, a film shot over eight days in 2009 and recently released on DVD by Magnolia Home Entertainment. Wheatley is a Brit who cut his teeth on second unit, advertising and webisodes, all of which was a good training ground. When he finally managed his first feature, he received good notices, even winning the Next Wave prize at Fantastic Fest in Austin and Best UK Feature at London’s Raindance.

This is a claustrophobic crime drama that has been described as a low budget...

2010 has kind of been an astonishing year for films. And most of you won't know that until well into the middle of next year. The major studio tentpole films -- the huge summer releases, the bloated "comedies," the formulaic rom-coms that all your family members have been lauding while you sit in the corner silently seething -- have all been pretty much uniformly shit. (Show of hands, how many of your relatives were gushing about how much they can't wait for either Little Fockers or The Dilemma?) But the smaller films have been fucking champion.

Most of this list is going to seem incomplete, and that's because a majority of films have been included on the best documentaries and the general top ten lists. Also, because with the spotty release schedules and the vast majority of films, I'm not even sure what's actually eligible. Hell, as much as I pared down this list,...

Down Terrace

Directed by Ben Wheatley

Written by Robin Hill & Ben Wheatley

UK, 2009

A good movie that could very easily have been a great one, Down Terrace, a very black comedy with a dash of arthouse ambition, has all the ingredients necessary for a truly distinctive feature but bungles the proportions, making for a peculiar viewing experience – one worth partaking in, provided a strong inclination towards gallows humor.

Writer-director Ben Wheatley is already somewhat of a commodity in his native UK thanks to a BBC comedy series he created, The Wrong Door, and his comedic pedigree certainly shows through here. Terrace, his first feature, revolves around a clan of two-bit criminals whose professional ties might actually be stronger than their blood ties. Father Bill (Robert Hill) and son Karl (Robin Hill, Robert’s real-life son and the film’s co-writer) are fresh off of a stint in the clink, and...

I’ve never fully understood British humor. The dry delivery and snarky wit sometimes really works and can result in me being on the ground laughing with how brilliant it is (i.e. Death at a Funeral). That said, sometimes the much more direct approach and often times crass in-your-face mentality of it leaves my American mind confused as to whether I’m supposed to be merely amused or rolling on the floor in tears (i.e. most films created by Guy Ritchie). I’d put Down Terrace in the latter category. When checking the IMDb for the film prior to my viewing, the poster had such raves as “Caustically Funny!” and had a genre label of “Comedy”. What I ended up getting was something much more in the vein of Guy Ritchie. While not without its moments of comedic finesse, Down Terrace succeeds more as a quirky crime family...

[Here begins a trio of Toronto-centric posts and, yes, I apologize to those of you who don't live here.]

Fans of bleaker than bleak comedy in Canada, give a nice round of applause to Evokative Films because they're about to give Ben Wheatley's award winning black comedy Down Terrace a theatrical release on these shores. Here's the official word:

Montreal, Thursday October 21st, 2010 - After screenings at the Fantasia and Vancouver International Film Festivals, Down Terrace will be opening at the Carlton Theatre in Toronto on November 12th. This is the first English-speaking film release for Evokative Films, having concentrated its releases on International, subtitled films over the last two years.

Father and son Bill and Karl have just been released from jail, but all is not well at Down Terrace. Patriarchs of a small crime family, their business is plagued with infighting: Karl has had more than he can take of his old man's philosophizing and preaching; Bill thinks Karl's dedication to the family is seriously compromised...

Director: Ben Wheatley Writers: Robin Hill, Ben Wheatley Starring: Bob Hill, Robin Hill, Julia Deakin, Sara Dee, Mark Kempner, Kali Peacock, Kerry Peacock, David Schaal, Michael Smiley, Gareth Tunley, Tony Way Karl’s (Robin Hill) mother, Maggie (Julia Deakin), and father, Bill (Robert Hill), run a crime syndicate in Brighton, England. (Apparently, Bill is a middleman of sorts between the big wigs in London and the small time crooks in Brighton.) This not-so-average middle-class family has issues on a normal day -- Karl has severe anger management issues and throws tantrums that would make a 2-year old blush, Bill is overtly patronizing and condescending, and Maggie is the queen of passive-aggressiveness -- so when the additional stresses of a possible snitch and an unplanned baby are added to the mix, their already fiery personalities begin to combust. Down Terrace commences as Karl and Bill return home after a frustrating court case involving Karl.

Real life father and son Robert and Robin Hill headline Ben Wheatley's searing crime dramedy Down Terrace, which makes its way into select cinemas this Friday, October 15th. The story follows the heads of a crime family struggling to keep their business together as infighting and a police informant threaten to unravel everything around them. We have your first look at Down Terrace with an emotionally charged clip that features Robert and Robin Hill arguing over an impending marriage. To get a taste of this "caustically funny" and "fantastic" dramatic comedy, click on the clip below:

Down Terrace: We're Getting Married

Fresh from watching his son Karl being acquitted in court, family head Bill returns to his terraced home in Brighton with dangerous questions swimming around his head. Questions which will lead to violence, recrimination and murder. Who grassed him up to the police? How will top brass...

ComingSoon.net has your exclusive first look at a clip from dark comedy Down Terrace , opening in theaters on October 15. Directed by Ben Wheatley, the film stars Bob Hill, Robin Hill, Julia Deakin, Sara Dee, Mark Kempner, Kali Peacock, Kerry Peacock, David Schaal, Michael Smiley, Gareth Tunley and Tony Way. In Down Terrace , father and son Bill and Karl (real life father and son Bob and Robin Hill) have just been released from jail free and clear, but all is not well at Down Terrace. Patriarchs of a small crime family, their business is plagued with infighting. Karl has had more than he can take of his old man's philosophizing and preaching, and Bill thinks Karl's dedication to the family is seriously compromised when he takes up with an estranged girlfriend who claims to be...

Down Terrace, an unusual gangster film from U.K., opens this Friday, October 15th at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 in West Hollywood. Directed by Ben Wheatley, written by Robin Hill (who stars in the film) and Ben Wheatley, and produced by Andrew Starke, the film's cast includes Julia Deakin, Sara Dee, Robert Hill, Robin Hill, Mark Kempner, Kali Peacock, Kerry Peacock, David Schaal, Michael Smiley, Gareth Tunley, and Tony Way. The film has been described in the press as "The Sopranos if imagined by Mike Leigh and Ken Loach."Synopsis: Father and...

This is the trailer for Down Terrace, directed by Ben Wheatley and starring Robin Hill, Robert Hill, Julia Deakin, David Schaal, Kerry Peacock, Tony Way, Mark Kempner, Michael Smiley and Gareth Tunley. Taking the best elements of The Sopranos and giving them a very British twist, Down Terrace focuses on the kind of issues faced by all families. Can Uncle Eric dispose of a body without making a mess of it again? And what should mum Maggie (Spaced’s Julia Deakin) make for tea? When Bill suspects there’s a mole in his criminal operation, he decides it’s time to clean house and recrimination, betrayal, murder and a spot of redecorating are quick to follow. But as Bill and his family soon discover, you’re only as good as the people you know…...

Down Terrace is yet another entry in the British crime caper genre, only it puts a substantially different spin on it. That doesn't mean it's a good film, although it almost is. When it works, it's wonderfully effective. Unfortunately, the sum of its parts do not equal a fully realized film -- Down Terrace fits the definition of close, but not quite.

Directed by Ben Wheatley, Down Terrace is about a small-time family of crooks headed by Bill (Robert Hill) and his son Karl (Robert's real-life son Robin Hill, who also wrote the screenplay). They're recently returned from jail, where they narrowly avoided serious time and are trying to get the family affairs back in order. There's a leak somewhere in their organization, and they need to figure it out. Among their list of friends and suspects are mother Maggie (Julia Deakin), and comrades Garvey (Tony Way), Pringle (Michael Smiley...

The Independent Film Festival of Boston kicks off on Wednesday. If you're in the New England area, this is the best film festival around, having supplanted the fall Boston Film Festival as the one to be at after less than a decade of existence. It offers a great opportunity to see a lot of great independent films, a few of which are premieres, and several of which played earlier at Sundance or at South by Southwest. IFFBoston, however, offers a more low-key opportunity to see those same movies without having to deal with the massive crowds or the lengthy lines. Even two days before the festival begins, you can still purchase tickets and walk up, half an hour before showtime, and get a seat. Most of the films play in Davis Square (in Somerville), which is the second best neighborhood in metro Boston, save for Brookline (where some of the other films will be showing,...

If "The Sopranos" had been cooked up by Mike Leigh instead of David Chase, the result might resemble Down Terrace, an unassuming little dramedy that barely seems to mesh with the genre criteria of most other Fantastic Fest programming and yet managed to take home a handful of awards, and rightfully so.

Karl (Robin Hill) has followed in his father's footsteps, to the extent that they've both just been let out of jail, and Bill (Robert Hill) wonders who may have ratted them out. Karl has more pressing concerns, though -- namely, a girlfriend (Kerry Peacock) whose pregnancy will require more responsibility on Karl's part than he's ever known.

Sure, Bill's not terribly keen on the prospect of becoming a grandfather, just as Maggie (Julia Deakin) is wary of becoming a grandmother, especially with them all already living under one roof. But their top priority is finding the leak and plugging it,...