Down Terrace (2009)
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Reviews Counted: 32
Fresh: 27 | Rotten: 5
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Critic Reviews: 9
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 0
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 1,303
My Rating
Movie Info
Father and son Bill and Karl (real life father and son Bob and Robin Hill) have just been released from jail free and clear, but all is not well at Down Terrace. Patriarchs of a small crime family, their business is plagued with infighting. Karl has had more than he can take of his old man's philosophizing and preaching, and Bill thinks Karl's dedication to the family is seriously compromised when he takes up with an estranged girlfriend who claims to be carrying his baby. To make matters worse,
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Cast
-
Bob Hill
Bill -
Robin Hill
Karl -
Julia Deakin
Maggie -
David Schaal
Eric -
Tony Way
Garvey -
Kerry Peacock
Valda -
Michael Smiley
Pringle -
Mark Kempner
Councillor Berman -
Kitty Blue
Pringle's Kid -
Gareth Tunley
Johnny -
Kali Peacock
Mrs. Garvey -
Luke Hartney
Spitz -
Janet Hill
Mrs. Pringle -
Simon Smith
Bill's Band Member #1 -
Paul George
Bill's Band Member #2 -
Simon Walker
Bill's Band Member #3
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Down Terrace Trailer & Photos
All Critics (33) | Top Critics (9) | Fresh (27) | Rotten (5) | DVD (1)
The British do kitchen-sink realism extremely well; they also have a nice way with black comedy. It's rare, however, to see the two as wickedly combined as they are in Down Terrace.
Top CriticA low-budget effort by British director Ben Wheatley, Down Terrace is an enjoyably nasty piece of business about a down-market sort of underworld clan.
A dark and hilarious thwomping of the whole miserablist British gangster genre.
Its litany of outrageous abuses and horrible crimes, as it careens from delicately phrased dinner-table insults to old ladies murdered in the street, is often gaspingly, ridiculously funny.
A grimly amusing portrait of a closed system in which the pressure is building to an explosion.
Down Terrace is the auspicious feature debut of Ben Wheatley, who's spent a decade directing sitcoms, Web-isodes and commercials while fruitlessly pitching scripts to Hollywood.
This is the sort of thing you'd expect if the Coen Brothers were British and they decided to do their own version of a "Sopranos" movie set in Brighton, England.
Has some poignant moments but gets lost along the way in the macabre.
The junior Hill's script, written with director Wheatley, very deliberately considers the abilities of each of its elements, from the inanimate to the human, and uses each to their best effect.
Chances are you've never seen a crime family like the one in Ben Wheatley's unusual, ferociously witty dark comedy Down Terrace.
Doesn't provide much of an electric charge until very late in the game, making the first two acts of the picture an incredible test of endurance for anyone not utterly devoted to the throttled fury of British kitchen sink dramas.
off-kilter
A shambling gangster movie about father and son ex-cons (played by Robert and Robin Hill) who passive-aggressively pick at each other in between meeting with their eccentric associates.
An unnecessarily claustrophobic visual scheme dings this otherwise so-so slice of darkly humorous, stakes-free entertainment, good for fans of certain British TV crime serials, and those schooled in the work of Shane Meadows.
By mixing the situations of a crime drama with dysfunctional family dynamics, the everyday becomes accentuated, meaning that outbreaks of violence are absurdly comic but still retain a nasty edge.
A wonderfully rich script and brilliantly realised characters...
Audience Reviews for Down Terrace
Super Reviewer
To be honest, I do not really know what to do with "Down Terrace." It could be a comedy, but it's not really funny and mostly people just sit around the house doing nothing. Okay, so maybe it is a kitchen sink drama about the perils of family but then it is hard to take seriously with the odd turns the plot takes. To quote Batman, criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot and if they also use their own product, like they do here, a paranoid lot. But their actions should still have a rationale and the ending particularly does not make any sense.
Super Reviewer
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Directed by: Ben Wheatley
Summary: Just released from jail, father-and-son crooks Karl (Robin Hill) and Bill (Robert Hill) attempt to keep their two-bit illegal enterprise from crumbling while ferreting out the snitch who squealed on them to the cops in this British black comedy. The suspects include Karl's wife (Julia Deakin) and pregnant gal pal (Kerry Peacock), a hit man (Michael Smiley) and a reviled family friend (Tony Way).
My Thoughts: "I spent most of the time going back and forth over the film because the character's have such thick British accents and speak fast and low, that I had trouble understanding it all. That was just my own frustration with it. The other is I couldn't really get into the film. It had some funny moments here and there, and the acting was just OK. It just wasn't very interesting for it to be a mob film. There's also a claustrophobic feeling with the film, cause most of it is taking place in a small house. The character's are disturbed and paranoid about one another. Everyone is deceiving the other one. It is a film that has been made and made much better. Not one I would see again."