Watchable dark portrait of a tragic and lonely figure.

Gerard Johnson’s first feature is a moving study into the tragic existence of Tony (Peter Ferninando) living within the harsh confines of a grim inner city environment.

Tony has been living alone for many years in his council flat in Dalston. With no friends, he has not had a job in 20 years and has been living on the dole. But far from being a loner Tony does desperately want to interact with people but his mannerisms and outdated perspective mean that he always struggles to fit in and so magnifies his social outcast role in life. His pursuit of human interaction means that he will try to engage almost anyone for a chat, a child kicking a ball, an illegal DVD street vendor, drug addicts trying to score to and find him regularly frequent late night gay bars.

Johnson has really crafted a rich and subtle exploration of the life of Tony whose extreme violent manifestations are explored through the mundane unsatisfying nature of his life and glimpses of minutiae that give an insight and explain his troubled psyche.

Tony’s character is seen as quite complex as at various times he is socially inadequate, overly friendly and garrulous and suspicious. It’s very easy to empathise with Tony’s character as he essentially just wants to fit in and interact in society but the world he traverses in is not a place that can easily accommodate him.

He gains enjoyment from watching action VHS movies which typically star tough guys like Stephen Segal but where in real life he is pushed around, ignored and has little control or say in his destiny. In a rare outwardly glimpse of his psyche we see Tony looking in the mirror talking to himself and alternating from saying he is a soldier that should die as a soldier to a self loathing worthless person.

Moving, edgy, uncomfortable to watch with some dark satirical moments and a haunting but gently score.