Man Inside, The

Stars: Ashley 'Bashy' Thomas, David Harewood, Jason Maza, Michelle Ryan, Peter Mullan

Director: Dan Turner

Another week, another low-budget British thriller whose natural home (despite being filmed in a widescreen format) is in a late night television slot. (Mind you there are two things in its favour firstly there is no BBC money involved in its making and secondly, Lottery money is also absent).

And give writer-director Turner his due if he missed a single genre cliché, I must have missed it as well. Otherwise its simply a standard seen-it-all-before story of a Black Londoner Thomas who, exposed to crime at its worst as a child when his father Harewood involved him in the murder for which Harewood is now serving a life sentence is now trying to expunge his past by training to be a boxer.

Naturally, Thomas efforts to live a good life are derailed by family troubles including the stabbing of his brother, which finally drive him to reunite with his imprisoned father - and violence follows...

Thomas and Mullan as his trainer are just about adequate but unmemorable. Harewood attacks his psycho jailbird role like a starving man laying into a pile of sugared doughnuts and former EastEnder and one-time Bionic Woman Ryan sports black lipstick as the key element for her portrayal of Mullans daughter and Thomas girlfriend.

Richard Swingles moody photography of grimy urban locations is a prime asset but , like the film itself, fails to linger in the memory.

Alan Frank

UK 2012. UK Distributor: Kaleidoscope . Colour.
99 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 0, Swearing 3.

Review date: 27 Jul 2012