Face

A five man crew robs a cash depot and comes out with far less than they expected. Part of the money is missing, and one of them must have taken it. From there the film stops being about the robbery and becomes about the crew eating itself. Antonia Bird directs. Robert Carlyle plays Ray and Ray Winstone plays Dave, with Philip Davis, Steven Waddington and Damon Albarn, who also contributed to the score. Its distinguishing feature is the political background. Ray is a former left wing activist who moved into armed robbery once there was nothing left to fight for. His mother still goes on demonstrations and can see what her son has become. Bird puts that detail at the centre: the film is about what remains in Britain after the political defeats of the eighties. So it starts as genre and turns into an argument about a generation. The robbery itself is over in the first ten minutes. Who it is for: viewers who like nineties British crime films and Carlyle and Winstone at that stage. Who it is not for: the editing is loose in places, some characters die before they have developed, and the violence is realistic and joyless.