GERALD KEARNS, IWAN RHEON, LUKE TREADAWAY AND MATTHEW LEWIS IN WASTELAND

Male bonding and robbery in Yorkshire

In this north of England heist film by first-time writer-director Rowan Athale, it takes some while to get to the action. That's partly because it's already happened. The ring leader, Harvey (the luminous and charismatic Luke Treadaway) is telling it to D.I. West (Mike Leigh vet Timothy Spall) in an interrogation room, roughed up and bleeding a bit but on high alert. As scenes unfold in flashback, it's all about the best-mate talk (some of it indecipherable for Yank ears; but that's the Leeds-district authenticity, you see), as Harvey and Dempsey (Iwan Rheon), Dodd (Matthew Lewis), and Charlie (Gerald Kearns) hash out the plans, the motivations, the doubts, and the final resolutions leading up to a tricky robbery of the local drug lord, Steven Roper (Neil Maskell of Kill List). "Wasteland" is what it's like where they grew up together; only Charlie has a trade (welder) but the factory's shut down; nobody has a decent job or prospects. As the story Harvey tells to D.I. West unfolds, he gets out of jail, renews relations with his girlfriend, Nicola (a convincing Vanessa Kirby), and talks his three freinds into the job without much trouble. He figures when they rob the safe of Roper's club they'll net £60,000, enough to start a cafe somewhere else. The idea came to him in prison, doing nearly a year for crimes Roper put onto him, which he was innocent of: so there's a double motive.

Then they research it. Preparation includes mapping out distances, spying with binoculars, and target practice with a bow and arrow.

Athale's film is tightly put together, even if it moves at a leisurely pace that makes it seem at times a bit like a mini-series boxed into under two hours. One of the four young men gets badly beaten up prior, by Roper's boys, because he suspects something. As we watch, up to the last few minutes how it's all going to unfold remains a mystery to us. And that's good.

The basic genre is familiar; the trick was to approach it with fresh eyes and eager and talented young actors (and some fine older ones), armed with original twists and a keen sense of milieu, mood, and local speech rhythms. These 22-year-olds are thin men in tight shirts with neutral faces, not your usual hoods. They may look almost too similar. But that encourages us to study them and learn to differentiate their personalities and roles. They have good vocabularies. At least Harvey, their natural leader, certainly does. When motivation falters a bit toward the end, Dempsey, a force in the story from the first when he picks up Harvey after he gets out of jail -- becomes the last minute cheerleader and motivator. Nicola is a good girl, but she's not part of the plan, and that leads to problems.

Despite the long preliminaries, the actual unfolding of the operation as Harvey tells it begins with fifty minutes of the film still left to go. At this point the interweaving of the scene of Harvey narrating to D.I. West with the action, both images dark and starkly lit, is particularly effective and suspenseful. And it does get layered and tricky, with a bit of Usual Suspects twistiness.

Acting is first-rate, with particularly strong work by Treadaway, Rheon and Spall, and good chemistry between Treadaway and Kirby. Neil Maskell shows the brutish menace he's good at in a key scene. This film has been loosely compared to Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels in blurbs, but that's misleading. Athale's approach isn't jokey; he studiously avoids frivolity, keeping his approach straightforward and serious. There's a cleanness about this film, its making and its young leads, that may disappoint fans of flashy crime movies, but will please those who like them with an authentic feel. Mind you though, the subject matter is familiar enough. You have to like these actors and this dialogue, this clever plotting and these well-delineated characters.

Reviews, as usual, vary. Some find the telling "bloated," "overlong." Most agree, however, that the cast is fine and that Athane shows considerable promise. Andrew Barker of Variety saw "a wildly uneven tone and a needlessly scrambled narrative," but a film that "suggests a higher intelligence beneath, waiting to flower down the road." Likewise we can compliment the quietly dramatic cinematography by Stuart Bentley, with particularly handsome sepia images of the nighttime heist, and mostly good musical background by Neil Athale, despite over-heavy techno-rock in some of the climactic action scenes (which nonetheless does the job). Hollywood Reporter provided a highly favorable review. I'd watch this again, and would like to, with subtitles.

Luke Treadaway has also recently gained exceptional recognition for his work on the London stage. His performance in the lead role of Christopher in the National’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was one of the most highly praised of 2012.

Wasteland debuted at Toronto, September 2012, showed at the LFF and other festivals, and was bought for US release by Oscilloscope. It releases theatrically at Cinema Village in NYC July 26, 2013.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.