Director: Gerard Johnson Starring: Peter Ferdinando, Elisa Lasowski Writer: Gerard Johnson | 2.5/5 Hyena Hyena is a film wherein good cops behave badly. It’s not exactly a new idea; last year’s James McAvoy-starring Filth was a much fresher breath of air than second-time director Gerard Johnson’s newest. Hyena has the staples that make these films so complex and interesting. His anti-hero, Michael (Peter Ferdinando), is a coke-snorting, hard-partying bloke with a nasty temper and a soft heart of gold. The setting is London, preferably nighttime, and the baddies are a group of Albanian and Turkish drug dealers and sex traffickers who are slowly taking over the area. Because this is a good-cops-behaving-badly film, you can expect some seedy deals, under-the-table plot maneuvering, and plenty of excessive beatdowns that the police chiefs definitely would not approve of. Why, then, does Hyena feel so slow and tepid? Simply put, it does not contribute much to the sub-genre. It’s nonessential. The story’s core conflict draws from Michael’s connection to a trafficking victim named Ariana (Elisa Lasowski). She reaches out to him for help and, knowing what she has been through, he rescues her. As you might imagine, this does not sit too well with her angry, buff captors. Michael spends the first half of the film doing “missions” with these guys that require him to party a lot and do a bunch of blow, and then the parties just stops after the rescue takes place. These party missions were a way for the police to get in and infiltrate the criminal operations; but after the second half veers off into the rescue-man direction, you begin to feel that you wasted your time paying such close attention to the first half. |
There is also a whole bit about some upper-level agents who are out to take down Michael and his band of outlaw lawmen. There’s a scene here and there, but by the time his team begins to be interrogated, you will not be able to remember how you got there or know where this is heading. The whole film is unpredictable in the sense that you are not 100% sure you even have the story straight. As you may guess, this is not the best kind of unpredictability to have.
The film’s main problems is that it cannot commit to a pace. Ninety percent of the time, things move slowly, quiet and reserved, but then out of nowhere burst geysers of grotesque violence. A secret business meeting turns into a bloody nightmare straight out of a horror film. A simple mistake becomes a sentence of excessively graphic rape scenes. I understand that it’s supposed to unmask horrible real-life acts, but one particular scene is almost too much to handle. Summing this problem up in the most polite way I can, Hyena just can’t seem to get its rhythms right.
I gave Hyena a middling score, though, which means there must have been something I enjoyed. And yes, there was. For starters, the soundtrack by The The, the director’s brother, is pretty rad. From the opening guitar chords, the score kept me more on edge than anything that was happening onscreen. Secondly, Johnson also has a great eye for composing beautiful shots. Obviously there is that shot of Ferdinando’s head silhouetted by flames that was used for the film’s promo poster, but there is much more to enjoy picture-wise. For starters, there is one wonderful tracking shot that follows a little Turkish girl as she dances from one room to another, from a jovial family party to a seedy backroom to her criminal father. It’s this kind of humanizing that could have elevated the villain’s place in the film, but too often are the bad foreigners simplistic “thug” types.
Hyena is uneven, yes. Anyone with a weak stomach for violence and abuse may want to steer clear. However, there are rewards for those who can push through the many low points. Ferdinando’s performance is subtle and emotionally complex, as is Johnson’s camera work. Are the pros worth enough to outweigh the cons. I’ll let you be the judge.
(Available on iTunes)
The film’s main problems is that it cannot commit to a pace. Ninety percent of the time, things move slowly, quiet and reserved, but then out of nowhere burst geysers of grotesque violence. A secret business meeting turns into a bloody nightmare straight out of a horror film. A simple mistake becomes a sentence of excessively graphic rape scenes. I understand that it’s supposed to unmask horrible real-life acts, but one particular scene is almost too much to handle. Summing this problem up in the most polite way I can, Hyena just can’t seem to get its rhythms right.
I gave Hyena a middling score, though, which means there must have been something I enjoyed. And yes, there was. For starters, the soundtrack by The The, the director’s brother, is pretty rad. From the opening guitar chords, the score kept me more on edge than anything that was happening onscreen. Secondly, Johnson also has a great eye for composing beautiful shots. Obviously there is that shot of Ferdinando’s head silhouetted by flames that was used for the film’s promo poster, but there is much more to enjoy picture-wise. For starters, there is one wonderful tracking shot that follows a little Turkish girl as she dances from one room to another, from a jovial family party to a seedy backroom to her criminal father. It’s this kind of humanizing that could have elevated the villain’s place in the film, but too often are the bad foreigners simplistic “thug” types.
Hyena is uneven, yes. Anyone with a weak stomach for violence and abuse may want to steer clear. However, there are rewards for those who can push through the many low points. Ferdinando’s performance is subtle and emotionally complex, as is Johnson’s camera work. Are the pros worth enough to outweigh the cons. I’ll let you be the judge.
(Available on iTunes)