Pulpmovies Reviews

The Deed to Hell certainly starts strongly with a man – riddled with bullet holes – staggering into a tattoo parlour. We soon learn that the man (Frank Franconeri) is called Andy and that this unlucky would-be robber has been the victim of the double-crossing Sal (Glenn Andreiev).

Andy isn’t the only person who has been double-crossed by Sal and, recognising that it’s time to get out, he leaves the country, heading for Europe. On the plane he meets Lynell (Shawna Bermender) who is heading to Paris in the hope of meeting touring rocker Zad Zolock (James Ian Rankin).

Lynell, we later learn, is having an affair with Vince (Roy Frumkes), the hen-pecked husband of harridan Anna (Wendy Marquez), a woman for whom keeping up with the Joneses is less of an obsession than it is a religion.

Rather than being a single linear narrative, The Deed to Hell gives us three interlinked stories all of which revolve around the same characters and themes. This approach is remarkably effective, primarily because of the script.

This is a very well plotted film in which the various narrative strands hold up very well, both as individual stories and as part of the overarching plot. Although there are a few jarring moments, these stories do fit together in a nicely consistent manner and connect to each other in a way that feels reasonably unforced.

It also helps, of course, that where it matters the acting is consistently reliable. Shawna Bermender puts in a very strong lead performance and Wendy Marquez’ does a great turn as the materialistic mother who can’t see how destructive her Behaviour is.

Also worth a mention is Frank Franconeri who, although he spends much of the film in a hospital bed, manages to bring real depth to his character – the first to have seen a glimpse of what lies beyond. And it isn’t pretty. Unfortunately, this brings me to the one real weakness of the film.

Although pitched as a horror film, The Deed to Hell is more a cross between a crime film and a dysfunctional family drama with some horror/fantasy elements thrown in. The problem here is that the horror elements jar a bit with the rest of the film and feel more like a religiously inspired addendum than an integral part of the plot.

That said, Glenn Andreiev has made a very ambitious film and one that does intelligently address some genuinely interesting themes of revenge, redemption, pride, avarice and the way in which our actions can cave unintended consequences for those around us.

This is the second of Andreiev’s films that I have seen and he is clearly improving as a filmmaker. The Deed to Hell is worth checking out if you get the chance, but I think his next film could be well worth looking forward to.

Johnny To has already established himself as one of the better directors to come out of Hong Kong in recent years and he’s on fine form with this stylish crime thriller.

Following a run-in with a gang of thugs led by Ponytail, Sergeant “Fatty” Lo (Lam Suet) loses his gun and turns to the brutally efficient Sergeant Mike Ho (Simon Yam) of the PTU to help him retrieve it. It’s late and Lo agrees to search for the gun until dawn, after which he will follow procedure and report the missing weapon.

Things take a turn for the worse as Fatty’s search for his gun intersects with a gangland assassination that threatens to escalate into an all out war on the streets of the city. Of course, a murder such as this doesn’t go unnoticed by the police and the CID, led by Inspector Leigh Cheng (Ruby Wong) becomes involved. Cheng is also very interested to know what Fatty and the PTU are up to…

Taking place over the course of a single night and against a background of dark and often deserted streets, PTU has a very noir feel which comes across in both the cinematography and the pacing of the film.

To’s cinematographer, Siu-keung Cheng’s portrayal of Hong Kong is remarkably unique. The shops have closed and most of the population are at home, leaving the PTU operating in an almost eerie netherworld. It’s a look which, while being neither tense nor intrusive in itself, manages to convey a genuinely menacing airr throughout.

The pacing of the film is also remarkably restrained, almost static in places, and it’s with this steady progress through the accumulating events that To reveals the casual brutality of the police. And in the middle of it all is Yam’s frighteningly impassive sergeant for whom every beating is nothing more than another step towards achieving his goal.

Although PTU does feel like a character driven film, the characters portrayed are very much archetypes rather than rounded individuals and, as coincidence and bad luck pile up on each other, it becomes increasingly apparent that they are not in control of events. But, bound together by overlapping loyalties, they continue to try to clean up the growing mess.

All this makes for a very fatalistic crime drama which touches on themes of honour, loyalty and friendship as it progresses, almost fatalistically, towards a genuinely explosive climax.

PTU: Police Tactical Unit may be a little light on substance, but the style of the film more than makes up for this.

One of the most rewarding parts of running a site such as this is the number of short films that come my way. There are some incredibly talented people out there turning out superbly focussed pieces of twisted brilliance that really do deserve to be seen by a much wider audience. Desmond Coy is just such a film.

In the opening scene we meet our protagonist, played by Kerr Hewitt. He’s bruised, battered and bloody and pleading for mercy. And, just for good measure, whoever has kidnapped him had decided to hold him in a bathful of water. The film then goes on to reveal how he came to be in this position.

Writer, Jeff Spriet has managed to pack a surprisingly large amount of plot into the film’s short running time, and the story is very efficiently told. There is no padding here and everything that happens has a narrative value. Because of the way that the film is structured, this is not always immediately apparent but, by the end of the film, everything has been neatly slotted into place to ensure that the conclusion of the film is suitably satisfying.

Kerr Hewitt’s performance also deserves a mention. His character goes through a lot over the course of the film and Hewitt does a great job here of taking us from a mild dislike of his smug yuppie to genuine sympathy for the brutalised victim he becomes.

Visually, Desmond Coy is very effective indeed. There are basically three sets and, in each case, the design and the lighting perfectly captures the mood of the events – from the height of overconfidence to very low indeed. And when things do go wrong for our hero, the stylishly grimy violence of the film becomes almost painful to watch.

Desmond Coy is an exceptionally stylish film that tells a very solid story, and tells it well. The film is about to start its festival run and is well worth seeking out.