Paralysed with fear

An intriguing if wayward attempt to take the British redemption thriller into new territory, which begins with a young man witnessing his girlfriend's murder in a hold-up while he watches in fearful helplessness, despite a gun lying within his reach.

Fuelled by guilt, he becomes a wannabe vigilante, acquires a sawnoff shotgun and tracks down a substitute perpetrator: a cokehead killer whom he witnesses murdering a young girl. In spite of certain script infelicities that betray its film-student origins, this is not without merit, performed with conviction and shot with vivid urgency.

The Late Twentieth
Cert: cert18