DOWN TERRACE

"You're only as good as the people you know".

Bill (Robert Hill) and his son Karl (his real-life son Robin Hill) leave prison at the start of the film, promptly returning to their London home to reunite with their family. This includes Bill's long-suffering wife Maggie (Julia Deakin) and wide boy Uncle Eric (David Schaal).

A rock-hard celebratory cake and a bit of booze start the reunion off lightly, the banter being often genuinely funny. But there are sinister undertones from early-on: Eric pulls Karl to one side in the bathroom to reveal his latest acquisition - a gun; the fellas get busy with shovelling drugs into their bodies while Maggie sits anxiously in another room.

It turns out that this is no ordinary family. As Bill drunkenly recounts to the others, he moved into a life of organised crime in the 1960s ... and now that Karl has come of age, he's followed in his father's footsteps. Indeed, the entire family are a bunch of miscreants - similar, no doubt, to that family you know of near you ... or the one I know of near me, and so on.

The nitty-gritty of family life continues unabated through some equally funny and moving scenarios as a former girlfriend of Karl's turns up on the doorstep heavily pregnant (she became his pen-pal during one of his previous stints on the inside), and Karl later gets berated by a visitor for being overly affectionate to the three-year-old he brings with him.

Awkward meals round the dinner table, drunken guests, money woes and father-son rows: it's all familiar stuff, but all done in a refreshingly funny fly-on-the-wall manner that helps you warm to this typically dysfunctional British family.

But, as mentioned above, below all the internal politics, the petty bickering and jokes, there is an underlying life of crime that marks these characters with a darkness that dominates the gripping final act of the film as father and son hone in on those they suspect of having grassed them up to the police.

So, it transpires that this is a British Gangster comedy co-produced by the Steve Coogan outfit Baby Cow Productions. They're also responsible for stuff like TVs "Gavin & Stacey" and "The Mighty Boosh". You may already be running to the hills by now but, if you can still hear me, come back ...

First of all, consider this: the other co-producers behind this project are Mondo Macabro. Yes, THE Mondo Macabro. The "electronic music" for the film is provided by Stephen Thrower. Yes, THE Stephen Thrower. It's also worth taking on board that DOWN TERRACE won the Award for Best UK Feature at the 2009 Raindance Film Festival.

With its handheld camera, brisk editing and breathless dialogue, DOWN TERRACE works really well as a snappy situation comedy that would make a terrific TV feature. We're talking, way above par. There's no denying that, as tightly directed and fantastically acted as it is - particularly by the newcomer Hills - director Ben Wheatley can only get so much aesthetic mileage out of the largely kitchen sink settings and his supporting cast of familiar television faces. This is not a film to appease your average Multiplex numpty.

But, even if it is small scale in look and scope, DOWN TERRACE is marvellously entertaining from beginning to end. It's genuinely hilarious on frequent occasions, surprisingly insightful at times and - brilliantly - grips to the end. And the end is fucking great. And shocking.

The film looks great in this uncut presentation. Presented in anamorphic widescreen, colours are natural and strong while detail is sharp. Images are clean throughout and overall the transfer is highly impressive.

English audio is available in 2.0 and 5.1 options. Both mixes are very good.

An impressive array of bonus features begins with an engaging, affable and extremely fluent director's commentary track.

There is also a short film entitled "Rob Loves Kerry". Window-boxed in a 1.33:1 presentation and suffering from slightly distorted English mono audio, this 10-minute effort is a fast-moving video diary-style observational comedy about how a relationship goes tits up when the starry-eyed couple move in together. Starring the Hills once more, it's watchable.

You may prefer to skip straight to one minute's worth of outtake footage testing the Hills' chemistry on screen. That's followed by a more worthy 4-minute look at the pair's original screen test.

"Bill Talks about the 60's" is an extended version of a scene from the main feature. Its elongated version runs for 10 minutes and, as enjoyable as it is, it's plain to see how some canny editing prevented this from harming the film's pace.

A strange 5-minute scene entitled "Bill and the Toad" is similarly enjoyable. A text introduction explains how it was improvised on shoot, and it's pretty funny. It's nice to have it preserved on the DVD and certainly comes as appreciated.

An 84-second teaser trailer which played at festivals is up next. It makes DOWN TERRACE look like a Ken Loach film. Thank God it's not.

Finally, "The Amazing Wizards" is 8 minutes of mock goofiness co-starring Robin Hill. It riffs on the likes of "Jackass" and "Dirty Sanchez". It's funnier than either.

The DVD opens with an animated main menu page illustrated by a montage of black-and-white clips from the film. From there, a static scene-selection menu is split across three pages and allows access to the main feature via 12 chapters.

Metrodome's disc is defaulted to open with trailers for the DONNIE DARKO blu-ray, SHIFTY, and the brilliant-looking LEBANON.

A good DVD supports an excellent home-grown feature that is crying out to be seen. All the praise that DOWN TERRACE has been garnering is justified: it is great, and heralds the arrival of major talents in the form of the Hill blokes and Wheatley (he and Robin also wrote the cracking script).

Thoroughly recommended.

Review by Stu Willis