Here’s the year’s first Brit geezer-gangster nonsense panto, featuring a fair bit of torture porn. It features Craig Fairbrass, Tamer Hassan and James Cosmo; Danny Dyer’s duties in Albert Square probably prevented him from taking part. Fairbrass plays granite-faced Alfie, a tough ex-army guy made good, devoted to his wife and teenage daughter, but trying to keep them from the reality of his work: killing people for a military-style assassination unit with the fascistic name of Home Front, run by Albert Chapman, played by James Cosmo, whose monopoly on this kind of role in this kind of film is one of British cinema’s enduring curiosities. Alfie’s targets happen to be mostly nonces and drug dealers, which is why he’s supposed to be sort of the good guy, and the poor sensitive chap is suffering from the beginnings of a breakdown – plagued with visions of his old victims. Soon, his employers turn on him and it all kicks off. Breakdown becomes more and more preposterous and embarrassing as it goes on. A certain climactic shotgun blast in a caravan is, in its way, a comedy highlight of the year.
