This British debut (the director previously worked in TV) has something of the oppressive threat of the similarly themed Australian drama Animal Kingdom. Both stories are set against the unpredictable outlaw backdrop of a crime dynasty; both explore the near impossibility of escaping from an environment that both supports and suffocates. But what sets Trespass Against Us apart is the fact that its milieu, the Traveller community, is one rarely seen outside Gypsy wedding-style TV series.
There are tonal inconsistencies – the ending in particular seems inappropriately wacky and absurd. But the tricky bond between Brendan Gleeson’s looming patriarch Colby Cutler, a personality so strong that he can – and does – convince his family that the world is flat, and his son Chad (Michael Fassbender) is nicely handled. Chad would prefer to raise his kids outside a world where crime is a career and an evening’s entertainment involves chucking pressurised containers on to a bonfire. But he knows that society is unlikely to welcome a semi-literate habitual thief into its midst.
