Wanderings and … wonderings.

A decent enough, semi-rousing yarn that is better as an example of missed stylistic choices than a superior entertainment. It’s mature but has a soap opera ‘quality’ to it, which makes you wish it went all out and 100% ridiculous for it’s so damn plodding at times. The cast are the best thing about it. Tim Roth is suitably supercilious and looks like he’s having a ball. What happened to him? He was Mr. Nineties. Perhaps that’s his decade and no more. Brian Cox, though, is the gem here. He’s a total slimeball and unashamedly so. He excels at those roles.

The score, sadly, is horrendous and frankly intrusive; it detracts from the would-be drama on display. Listening to it, I kept thinking of Miller’s Crossing (1990) or Fargo (1996), and then realised it was the same bloke who scored those movies.

A cracking sword fight with actual decent editing rounds off proceedings. There aren’t a million cuts to the sequence, which is shocking. But then this was made prior to ADHD being a prerequisite for the job of editor.