Film Exposure

It’s the middle of the night in England’s northern rust belt. The darkness is broken by the distant lights of the city; the stillness, by the thrumming of a motorcycle. The mysterious man barely ever takes off his helmet. He is focused, determined, dangerous. Jack just wants to do the job, get paid, and get away from here with his younger brother. But things don’t go as planned. Double-crossed, betrayed, on the run, the former motocross champion and army veteran sets out on a quest to find his kidnapped brother and reclaim control of his future. And if he has to break a few skulls in the process, well…

Once the quick opening dialogue establishing characters and plot is out of the way, it does not take long for director Jamie Childs to make it abundantly clear what he is going for with his first feature film. For a while, human interactions become rare, and words rarer still. While the synth score takes over the soundscape, the camera guides us through the night, immersing us in a dark world of rotten concrete, abandoned plains, and tortured silence. England has seldom looked so bleak yet so captivating. The bleakness is neither post-apocalyptic nor allegorical; it’s the gloom of post-industrial life, of a world left behind yet still bursting with energy.

It quickly becomes clear that the nocturnal journey ahead of us is going to be about mood and atmosphere, about tasting the air of the area through the screen; the distant odour of the sea, the faint impression of rusted steel, and the rage and the despair of the protagonist. During the long stretches of dialogue-free developments, main actor Oliver Jackson-Cohen carries the film on his shoulders. The Mike Flanagan regular smartly leaves his comfort zone here, turning in a mostly stoic performance that demands greater emotionality through body language. His helmet, more often on than not, also forces him to use his eyes to convey a wide range of emotions or desires.

The film is not primarily interested in action or violence per se. Deaths often happen off-screen or are not very bloody. Childs is more fascinated with his setting and his character, and the path he must take to set himself free of the place and of his past. That is not to say Jackdaw doesn’t overtly rely on thriller tropes to propel its story forward. The chain of events unfolds in an efficient fashion, bringing our protagonist from one obstacle to the next without much surprises, but always with propulsive energy.

That energy is to be found in the fact that the film never stops; in spite of being an atmospheric noir thriller, the gears keep moving from one chase to the next, from one police raid to the next shootout. Although the budget was quite small, Childs and his team make the most of it, taking advantage of the lighting and sets to make the action scenes look bigger than they are. There is nothing extraordinary on display, but a sure hand at the helm helps steer the ship in the right direction, away from the pangs of cheap-looking indie actioners. The aforementioned music by Damon Baxter and Si Begg helps keep the momentum going, adding to the feeling that the stripped-down narrative is but a vehicle for the director’s desire to turn a pastoral and proletarian region into an organic background for genre fare.

Childs wears his noir influences on his sleeves, creating images and sounds that – ephemerally and in their best moments – can recall scenes from Thief or Point Blank. He’s not quite at the level that would allow him to sustain such a spellbinding atmosphere over a longer runtime yet, but the foundations are indeed present. By weaving themes traditionally ingrained in the British noir film (Family! Revenge! Familial revenge!) with a more heightened, globally flourishing approach to genre filmmaking, the director knocks it out of the park with a thrilling and hypnotic feature debut.

Jackdaw – No European release date yet
Directed by Jamie Childs
With Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Jenna Coleman, Thomas Turgoose