Brighton Rock
DIRECTOR: Rowan Joffe
CAST: Sam Riley, Andrea Riseborough and Helen Mirren
CLASSIFICATION: 13 LV
RUNNING TIME: 111 minutes
RATING: 3 stars (out of 5)
Helen Herimbi
Forget Pinky and the Brain. This is Pinkie and his blade. Growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, a previously disadvantaged Pinky decides to economically empower himself by getting into the business of robbing and stealing.
When Pinkie Brown (Riley) and his gang aren’t helping themselves to other people’s possessions, they are attempting to provide protection to intimidated shop owners. But one day, a job goes horribly wrong and Rose (Riseborough), an impressionable, but lonely young waitress, becomes a witness.
Although adapted from a Graham Greene novel of the same name, this beautifully-bright, styled Rowan Joffe-directed film is set in a different era. The time of rockers and mods and Vespas and youth rebellion. England in the 1960s.
Our protagonist, Pinkie, is no Scarface, but his little friend, his trusty blade, does the trick. When he realises Rose has never felt infatuation from any man, he decides to marry her to keep her from telling the authorities about what she saw the day she met him – which was the day someone was set to swim with the fishes under Brighton Rock.
Restaurateur and Rose’s employer, Ida (the stunning, scene-stealing Mirren), is unimpressed by Pinkie and warns Rose about him.
But the manipulative Pinkie has Rose wrapped around his, drum roll please, pinkie. Rose takes her vows seriously and even after death has claimed the love of her life, she holds on tightly to his memory and a record he made for her.
The film is in a word: beautiful. Surprisingly so. It’s an emotional see-saw of sorts where the viewer can be repulsed at how disgusting Pinkie can be towards other humans and, in the very next moment, feel sorry for a man who was forced to grow into a man very quickly. He is nowhere near perfect, but heck, he tried to take over the world his way.
If you liked… ‘Edge of Darkness’ and ‘Harry Brown’… then you’ll like this.