The Corrupted

It started off ok but just withered off. One to watch on the telly when it's chucking it down

Based on true events, it is London 2012 after the Olympics. Liam McDonagh (Sam Claflin) is a boxer ex-con getting involved with powerful crime lord Clifford Cullen (Timothy Spall) who is connected to highly placed people like Anthony Hammond (Hugh Bonneville). DS Neil Beckett (Noel Clarke) and DS Gemma Connelly (Charlie Murphy) investigate a case which leads to the corrupt police force.

I don't know about the true events especially when everybody in the movie is corrupt. Liam really shouldn't be the lead character. It should be Beckett and Connelly. This has one good twist and limited action. The thrills are few. It is a lesser British crime thriller.

Noel Clark was good in this, so was Sam Claflin. Tim Spall did a decent job too. This movie is quite entertaining in the end but has a fair few flaws.

It is very slow at the start, and spends ages focusing on side characters. The wife (girlfriend?) in particular gets about 25 mins of screen time at the start but all you get from it is that the ex con has a family he cares about. That could have been done in five mins. On the flip side a key scene in a car where you see important corruption and power play moves gets 30 seconds of screen time. Just a lack of focus there.

On top of that the characters are inconsistent, for instance the villain is basically playing the existing system and using it to his advantage. Then there is a scene where he talks about being in favor of brexit. Why? He is clearly benefiting from the system in place why would he want to undermine that? Makes no sense.

If the script had been tightened up and the characters made a bit more consistent it could have been good but as it is its just kind of okay.

When I saw the trailer for The Corrupted I thought this is right up my street . It's a gangster movie ( my favourite genre) it's set in a part of London I know very well and it has some superb British actors in it such a Tim Spall , Noel Clarke and Hugh Bonneville but did it live up to my expectations?

This is the story of Liam, who wants nothing more than to live a peaceful life and to re-connect with his young son after coming out of prison .He learns his brother is caught up in a dark and dangerous web of corruption with property developer Clifford Cullen (Timothy Spall). In a drive for redemption, Liam risks everything to save his brother and win back the trust of his family.

The first thing to say about this film is that it's relentlessly dark . There is nothing happy or cheerful going on here and there is definitely no humour but that's not necessarily a bad thing in my book.

Tim Spall is fantastic as the gangland boss and Sam Claflin does a great job as our anti hero but I wasn't convinced that Noel Clarke was a copper for one minute .

I have to admit an hour into this I felt like it was going through the motions . Sure , there was lots of action but nothing we hadn't seen many times before . Luckily in the second half of the film it got a lot more interesting and grimmer !

This film seemed to slip under the radar when it was released last year, maybe because of how dark it is but as London gangster movies go it's not too bad at all.

'The Corrupted' sort of came out of nowhere and disappeared just as quickly. I'd never even heard of it until it arrived on the cinema listings and it seems as though I'm only one of few who has seen, or is even aware of, it. I'd like to be able to say that this is an absolute hidden gem and it's a shame that so many people missed it but, unfortunately, I can't. It's by no means bad, but it's just nothing new or outstanding. The performances are generally great, especially Timothy Spall's, and it's engaging enough throughout, but the story is quite generic and it's instantly forgettable. While it's on though, it offers enough of the generic pleasures associated with the crime genre to please crime fans and there's some decent turns in the narrative that keep you invested, even though they aren't all that surprising. However, there are several rookie mistakes in the filmmaking here - from badly executed focus pulls to breaking the 180 degree rule - that make the whole thing feel a bit amateur. Sure, it will have obviously had a low budget, but that's no excuse for problems like this. Apart from that though, it's well made, with good shot composition and cinematography. It's bizarre, then, that the production company made no real attempt to try and get people to see it. It had a theatrical release, after all, so it must have had some money behind it. It's far from great, but it should have had the chance to find its audience. Either way, it's worth checking out. 6/10