The Liability - film review

Tim Roth and Peter Mullan star in this low-budget British thriller set mainly on the unglamorous A1
17 May 2013

A thrill-seeking lad gets paired up with a gangster (Tim Roth) and soon views work experience in a whole new light. It's no chore to watch the cast of this low-budget British thriller (set mainly on the unglamorous A1).

Film newcomer Jack O’Connell, as young Adam, is a charmer, while Roth — his face as creased as an elephant’s behind — exudes wisdom, wit and warmth. Meanwhile, Talulah Riley, who plays an avenging angel who crosses their path, is extremely pretty.

Still, it’s impossible to suspend disbelief as Roth and Riley proceed to make Adam’s dreams come true (films are invariably fuelled by fantasy but it’s the supposedly gritty context that makes this stuff so hard to swallow).

Also frustrating is the portrayal of Adam’s mum (Kierston Wareing). She’s shacked up with a hard man (Peter Mullan; excellent, of course) and there are various hints that Adam’s rage towards his stepdad has an incestuous edge. All very Hamlet but that play, written more than 400 years ago, had great lines for Gertrude. Wareing’s housewife, by contrast, is about as well-rounded as a blow-up doll. Look how far we haven’t come.

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