Steven Nesbit’s gangster thriller “North v South” is a flashy, fun effort, but it’s ultimately unclear what it’s trying to be.
North v South has all the makings of an engaging crime drama. There’s beefy strongmen who swear a big, Tarantino-esque game before unleashing wrath on their equally arrogant adversaries. There’s suspenseful negotiations between the film’s two crime gangs, one from the north of England and the other from the south, that we know are all for show and will only end in violence. There’s vehicular action, standoffs, shoot-outs, deception, sex, drugs, and a whole array of colorful characters, from a child assassin to a cross-dressing hitman. And, of course, there’s a star-crossed love story between a young boy and girl from opposing gangs.
What I wasn’t able to grasp was what all these elements were trying to build towards, as North v South ends up feeling very disjointed. Brad Moore surely eats up the screen when he steps in a few minutes into the film as Gary Little, a loudmouthed gangster with a sharp, profane response to even the slightest criticism. This scene, which involves a clown (Steve Evets) and his young daughter Sam (Sydney Wade) stopping at the wrong time to go to the bathroom at a pub at which Gary and partner Bill (Geoff Bell) are waiting, sets a tense, witty and violent tone for the film, but with so much going on for the rest of the 90 minutes, it’s hard to keep up with it all.
Soon we watch as Gary and his partners - representatives from the southern gang - partake in a blunt but suspenseful negotiation with their opponents from the north. The two groups have been in a Cold War of sorts for decades, but here the truce is about ready to crack, and as soon as the meeting is adjourned both groups begin a cat-and-mouse game of collecting info, organizing assassinations, and planning large-scale attacks. A simple gang-vs-gang battle of wit, spit and grit would have made for a convoluted enough hour-and-a-half, but with everything else going on, it’s a pretty crowded affair.
Thrown into the mix is the romance between Willow (Charlotte Hope) and Terry (Elliott Tittensor). She’s the daughter of Vic Clarke (Steven Berkoff), head of the southern gang, and he works for the family business, collecting info for the northerners. Their romance is supposed to anchor the movie in humanity, but ultimately just feels like it’s added baggage. Terry narrates the film, but once more textured characters come into play, we forget about his perspective altogether.
Amongst these other characters are Gustave (Dom Monot), a transgender hitman, and Penny (Freema Agyeman), who was trained from orphanhood to kill for the northern gang and has now been assigned to train the young Sam - the tween daughter of the clown from the opening scene - to do the same. Agyeman is a standout of the cast, reminiscent of her days on Doctor Who with equal parts tough warrior and caring guardian. Sydney Wade also gives a memorable turn as the unassuming Sam, who doesn’t realize while playing around with a massive rifle that she’s being robotically trained to kill with it.
All these elements are a good mix of entertaining and affecting when looked at on their own, but 90 minutes simply isn’t enough time for them to all mesh together into something that feels complete. Instead, North v South comes off as divided as its title, unsure how to connect all the elements and instead throwing out contrived new elements around every turn without much connective tissue in between.
Visually, director Steven Nesbit and Kyle Heslop have created a sleek, stylish thriller, with the only noticeable flaws in the production values being the odd bit of sloppy editing here and there. The problems with the film mainly stem from the bigger picture, in that in trying to say so much, the film eventually says very little about its characters and their actions. Nonetheless, it’s quick enough and filmed with enough memorable scenes that it will make for enjoyable light viewing for fans of the crime genre, and may even have strong lasting value.
North v South is out now on DVD and Blu-Ray.
