The Liability

Roth's performance and handful of dry-as-a-bone one-liners keep it from the straight-to-DVD pile. Just.

It's the performances of Roth and O'Connell (and that of Peter Mullan as their imposing boss) that I want to highlight here.

Blows and bullets are exchanged, severed limbs stolen, ruthless sex-traffickers encountered.

Blackly comical writing and direction add a playful slant to what could have been a typically over-serious British crime thriller.

Films are invariably fuelled by fantasy but it's the supposedly gritty context that makes this stuff so hard to swallow.

Promising talent all round, including director Craig Viveiros.

A flawed but interesting downbeat Brit thriller with some creepy, leftfield jolts, calling to mind Mike Hodges with a twist of Tarantino.

The movie, directed with insufficient faith in the writing by Craig Viveiros, sells out character development in favour of garish contrivance ...

The film goes nowhere much in affably elaborate patterns - like a deranged SatNav ...

Offers some well-rounded performances from Roth, O'Connell and Mullan ... it offers nothing beyond the usual markers of such a coming-of-age film ...

Watchable, blackly comic British thriller enlivened by likeable performances, some engagingly left-field turns and a script that's peppered with decent one-liners ...

Gets mired in the usual amoral stone-cold stuff that makes you wish there weren't quite so many British directors keen to serve as apprentices to the Guy Ritchie school of tight and ruthless filmmaking.