Starring: Gemma Arterton, Martin Compston, Eddie Marsan Director: J. Blakeson Category: III
Conjuring a taut thriller from a matter-of-fact title and a minimal set-up, British director J. Blakeson's directorial debut is proof that sometimes less is more - and that low-budget, independent productions can these days rival or even better blockbusters as genre films.
The Disappearance of Alice Creed's remarkable opening sequence unfolds to reveal the anatomy of a crime, with the film's partners-in-crime - the brutish Vic (Eddie Marsan) and his young underling Danny (Martin Compston, far right with Marsan) - wordlessly preparing for and then conducting a kidnapping. It runs from the very first moment they begin turning a ramshackle flat into a hideout to the stripping, redressing and video-recording of their hapless victim (Gemma Arterton).
It's a stunning statement of intent: the settings, the editing and the pair's controlled acting draw out the intrigue and suspense from the mundane, and the clinical way the job is done only adds to the mystery of the kidnappers' motive. Blakeson skilfully reveals the machinations within the three-hander one step at a time, and never allows even the smallest of hints to spoil the betrayals and double-crossings that drive the film.
Rather using them as mere ciphers, Blakeson allows his characters to morph and change - brutality and tenderness co-exist within a character, while cynicism always looms large even over scenes where comradeship and love is seemingly professed. And it's those alterations and altercations that make The Disappearance of Alice Creed dazzling work.
The constant reorientation of power within this triumvirate keep the tension going all the way to its ending - which, ingenuously, raises yet another reading of the film's seemingly straightforward title.