Woodyanders
Dour and mild-mannered recluse Tony (superbly played with chilling understated conviction by Peter Ferdinando) lives by himself in a rundown London flat. Jobless and friendless, barely scraping by on welfare, with an addiction to 80's action schlock, and suffering from a crippling lack of social skills, Tony occasionally snaps under the pressure of his miserable existence and kills people who get on his nerves.Writer/director Gerard Johnson astutely captures a powerfully gloomy feeling of ennui, despair, and urban blight, makes vivid use of grimy slum locations, wisely keeps the gore to an absolute minimum, likewise smartly avoids any cliché tragic back story to serve as a glib explanation for the root cause of Tony's psychosis, and sweetens the whole deal with inspired moments of wickedly amusing black humor. Moreover, Johnson does an ace job of presenting how a combination of loneliness, alienation, social ineptitude, and extremely abject poverty can easily send a man dangerously over the edge. While Ferdinando clearly dominates the picture with his exceptional portrayal of a pathetic everyday zhlub who outwardly comes across as hopelessly meek and therefor harmless (which is exactly why Tony gets away with murder), he nonetheless receives sterling support from Francis Pope as abrasive junkie Smudger, George Russo as Smudger's more easygoing buddy Mackey, Lorenzo Camporese as aggressive gay barroom pick-up Alex, Vicky Maskell as pesky neighbor Dawn, and Neil Maskell as feckless social worker Mike Hemmings. The stark hand-held cinematography by David Higgs further nails the overall sense of gritty realism. Kudos are also in order for The The's appropriately melancholy score. Dark, funny, and highly effective.
videorama-759-859391
Tony is too short, yes. Why is that bad? Because the film is so frickin' good. It tells us all in 73 minutes, in what is a very disturbing serial killer movie, London style. And how awesome is the actor? Very awesome. Either being ignored or narrowly avoiding punch ups, Tony is a pathetic loner, who desperately wants companionship, but harvests a deeper darker secret. He's a serial killer, disposing of body parts in the river. There's some occasional, but underestimated violence, one scene in particular, involving some severing of a poor SOB's arm in a sink. Disturbed loners or just loners, will relate with the harsh reality of this film, that also works as a comedy too, thanks to certain dialogue, as only actor Ferdinado can deliver. The interrogation scene that has him mentioning a movie reference and title, to a serious as hell young copper, where a local kid has gone missing, is gold, but none more so, than the scene at the unemployment office, with Tony's much refusal to work. Funny too, was a similar scenario with him in an interview at a tanning salon. The gay aspect with the young male clubber, taking an interest in Tony, I didn't really need, as I found it a bit off putting, where truly Tony, has some repulsive moments, but it has an all too realness about that sets it apart from other serial killer movies, ones not based on killer movies, where this one was confrontingly real, which to me is a great way to wile away 73 minutes of disturbia. Ferdinado plays it down, so well, not overdone. Tony, even though a fictional character, is an all too real one, capable of such murderous crimes, as a many people you see in society. The subplot where the little boy went missing, really heightened the disturbing air of the film, with a much relieved ending, but for Tony, with shades of a Travis Bickle like character, a much opened ending, where for him, loneliness is a revolving door, of rejection, ridicule as near misses with fists. Tony is a serial killer film that really impressed me, without having to fancy it up, or anything. It's an all too real slice of reality, where Ferdinado, brings so much imagination, with an unforgettably disturbing and pathetic character.
movieman_kev
Conflicted about this film. It is well-acted especially by Peter Ferdinando who's spot-on as the emotionally-stunted soft-spoken psychopath Tony. Perhaps if I didn't read the positively glowing reviews for the movie, I would've ended up liking this lil slice-of-(serial killer) life film a tad more. It's not nearly as good as "Henry" a masterpiece that its often compared to and going into this one expecting it to be up on that level will likely be disappointed. However if you approach it blindly, and can get past the admittedly thick accents, then any fan of the sub-genre will still appreciate this one.
