Short films at Festival Central (2) - A Gun for George (2011)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

29 November

* Contains spoilers *

Director / Lead : Matthew Holness

For all that it, intentionally, raised laughs with The Reprisalizer and the gun-fixated nature of his activity (and where some shots had been directed), the film was skilfully playing with the audience’s sympathies for, and expectations of, Terry Finch - down to who George was, and what the balance of power was with others whom he, often confrontationally, encountered.

Finch is not exactly a Walter-Mitty-type character, but there are nods in the direction of sources such as t.v. private detective Jim Rockford (The Rockford Files) and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). That said, Matthew Holness in writing and playing the part, creates - in scarcely more than fifteen minutes - an identifiable breed of (would-be?) revenge-taker, and his own brand of hero. Finch selects himself for attention or ridicule by his style of dress and of appearance, but it is what he is happy with, because he has not moved with times that have deserted him and his sort of writing.

When we see that it has led to attacks on his property, we find out what matters to him, although, contrasted with the ludicrousness of his notions of heroism and reprisal, there is a clearly felt sense of bathos. In the last wish of a friend, both themes come together, with shots up to and down from a room several stories up suggesting a threshold, on which we leave Finch.

The whole film is pervaded by ambiguity, and keeps one working to piece together fact from fantasy in a way that mirrors the pressured nature of Finch's self-expression and behaviour. Well worth another viewing to see how the kaleidoscope changes !


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