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Tony is a bleak but brilliant film. It takes us through a week in the life of an East London jobless loner who spends most days watching 80s action films on an ancient video recorder and even older TV. Somewhat of a sociopath with very few social skills, he endeavours to strike up conversations with the sad and dispossessed he meets as he trudges the streets.
Using a phone box one day, he meets two crack-heads and invites them back to his seedy flat. Once they're off their threepenny bits, he calmly asphyxiates one, chopping his body into pieces before dumping them in a canal. It's not a life-affirming film but it is riveting. It's hard to believe that Tony is director Gerard Johnson's debut feature film as he directs with a light but confident touch and an eye for the nuances of human existence.
It's also something of a family affair: director Gerard Johnson is the brother of The The's Matt Johnson and Matt provides the haunting soundtrack (CD available at www.thethe.com). Gerard and Matt's dad Eddie plays a customer in a pub scene. Eddie was a pub landlord in east London.
The DVD contains commentary from Peter Ferdinando who plays Tony and features Mug, a short film made by Gerard Johnson a few years before he made Tony. It also features a shorter earlier version of Tony again starring Peter Ferdinando and Lucy Flack who also appears in Mug.
score 9/10
goldeneye-2006 20 July 2012
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2645490/ |
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23-11-2020 02:27:09