Martin Compston: Piggy premiere tickets, and Four review

Front Row Reviews and Flickering Myth are both running competitions to win tickets to the UK première of Piggy - visit the websites for details.

Another review of Four

Scottish actor Martin Compston (‘Sweet Sixteen’, ‘Red Road’) is one of the stars of a taut new thriller – and the Herald has copies to give away.

‘Four’ is being released on DVD by High Fliers on May 7.

The plan is to kidnap your wife’s lover, take him to a remote warehouse – hurt him a little and scare him a lot.

The idea is to keep your hands clean and hire a detective for the dirty work.

Sounds simple? There’s no such thing as simple in this nerve-shredder of a film.

The detective reveals he also has the wife tied up elsewhere in the warehouse. He thinks it’s in the husband’s best interests to confront her as well.

The husband goes along with the plan and the sight of his wife tied to a chair, her head covered with a bag, makes him feel suitably strong and powerful.

However this is no simpering prey. The only thing this woman is unwilling to do is be a victim . . . or lose.

The film also stars Sean Pertwee and Craig Conway.

It’s a darkly comic British thriller packed full of suspense with twists and turns around every corner – building up to a shocking climax.

The Herald has three copies of the film to give away. See this week’s paper for details.

Source: Kirkintilloch Herald

Review of ‘Four’ [Martin Compston]

DVD Review of 'Four' starring Sean Pertwee and Martin Compston

by Holly Freeman, Brit Flicks (link below)

A film with only four characters set entirely in a warehouse; the components for either something entirely brilliant and insightful or something atrocious. Unfortunately, Four is the latter, it fails on every count lacking: an interesting plot, a solid script, aesthetic prowess or excellent acting.

Primarily, Four is boring. The plot encompasses an angry man who wants to avenge himself on his wife’s lover by physically abusing him in a warehouse having employed a detective to kidnap the man for him. Then a few entirely uninspired plot twists and continuity errors later, a few people die and the film ends. Sadly, the script didn’t rescue the film as one sentence could take up to five minutes to deliver as it was so heavily laced with swearwords in a style reminiscent of an eighties cop film or a tackier EastEnders.  Also, embarrassingly, a point that is heavily emphasised and laboured at the beginning of the film is entirely forgotten and contradicted at the end in an equally overt manner.

Sean Pertwee as the Detective is one of the few redeeming features of the film.  His performance is arrogant and seedy enough to make the two-dimensional character of the Detective stand up, this combined with his excellent estuary vowels provide a refreshing relief from the clumsy performance of Craig Conway. Initially, it seemed that perhaps Conway was struggling in his role as the angry husband because the angry husband was struggling, but as the film progresses it became clear that Conway did not have the ability to save his ridiculous character. Nor does he know how to punch. Martin Compston as the lover was adequate; his performance maintained a consistent standard despite the inconsistency of his character. As with Sean Pertwee, Kierston Wareing makes the most of her role as the wife. Chilling and vicious, Wareing almost salvages some emotionally charged scenes over a cigarette lighter. The acid-tongued verbal jousting with an illuminating metaphorical subtext meant...oh no, wait; it’s just a lot of swearing and snarling because they both want a cigarette. However, Wareing’s snarling enhanced the visual element to the film as it lent atmosphere. Her proficiency in the role also slightly lifted Compston’s clunky conduct.

It is possible to see the aspiration behind this film, as it attempts to challenge the typical trope of a hooded enemy, but the failure to create anything remotely compelling or realistic, means that unfortunately; Four was poor.

1/5 Stars

Four is available on DVD from May 7th 2012

Source: Brit Flicks