In this claustrophobic if unconvincing thriller, an arrogant landowner incurs the wrath of the builders renovating his ancestral home
There’s some really strong acting talent involved in this claustrophobic thriller set in south Wales, including the excellent Steve Speirs, who recently showed what a great comic turn he is as Burbage in Ben Elton’s Upstart Crow. But, however much I wanted to like it, this film never quite gelled: the dialogue and the confrontations seemed forced; some characters looked and sounded like caricatures; and the moment of escalation from tension into open violence was unconvincing.
Kevin Guthrie plays Simon, an arrogant landowner who is refurbishing the ancestral home as part of a colossal tax dodge on the advice of his slippery accountant Richard (James Lance). To do this, he has hired five builders: Bob (Speirs), Jim (Chris Reilly), Dave (William Thomas), Steve (Charley Palmer Rothwell) and Viktor (Goran Bogdan), a Ukrainian
immigrant whose smouldering good looks appear to catch the eye of Simon’s beautiful, troubled wife Amy (Amber Rose Revah).