Violence

Bluesky

It is, we are told, an age when kids would rather have a picture of a politician on their walls than a punk rocker. The Hacienda ain’t what it used to be. Charlie Rocket (Maddie Hasson) and her brother/heavy Bats (Tomaso Sanelli) are on their way to carry out a robbery. She puts on her chicken mask and he puts on his wolf mask, but he’s not prepared for the casual way she doles out violence. There’s a sweetness about Bats, even when he’s carrying out torture. He can never keep pace with his sister – but then, few people can.

Charlie’s violence, however, is not the inspiration for the title. It refers instead to one Henry Violence (Rohan Campbell), a twitchy straight-edge punk whose imaginative capacity is indicated by the word ‘fuck’ painted on the back of his studded leather jacket. Henry has been out of town on some kind of mystery one-man mission, but now he’s returned for his one true love, Charlotte (Sarah Grey), with whom he plans to ride off into the sunset. The problem is that he is not Charlotte’s one true love – that would be the stuff she spikes into her veins – and she really has no interest in leaving.

Trying to change the situation, which he’s sure can have nothing to do with Charlotte’s own will, Henry goes to see the man for whom he used to deal in the bad old days, Jimmy Jazz (Joris Jarsky). Holed up in the Hacienda, Jimmy controls the city, lording it over a dying empire. This is the man whom Charlie wants to kill, though once again, she’s hesitant to reveal the full scope of her schemes. Inevitably, she and Henry will cross paths, as a variety of gangsters and assassins come out of the shadows, scenting blood and looking for the chance to make their names.

It doubtless looked good on paper, and at Frightfest at the Glasgow Film Festival it went down well with the already excited crowd. There’s a “Warriors, come out to play!” vibe about it, but alas, like that film, it is better to remember than it is to watch. This is thanks to some gorgeous design work and a perfectly attuned soundtrack. Thus equipped, it delivers a number of memorable moments, but it struggles to fill in the spaces between them. Too much time is spent in aimless drifting, and at 84 minutes it feels overlong.

Campbell is good, and Hasson too. Henry’s dream aside, the film has an almost total disregard for gender at any level, which frees up the female actors to do more interesting things with their roles. Sadly, all the characters are underdeveloped. There aren’t enough fights and explosions to make up for this. The action we do get feels as stilted as the dialogue, and less able to use camp or pastiche as an excuse for it. Violence has lot of tasty ingredients but the final product is half-baked.

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