Protein (REVIEW) | Projector Shorts | Chew on this cannibal crime flick

6 months ago

Film Brain tucks into this Welsh horror crime thriller, an unusual mix of genres that doesn't make for a well-balanced meal, but shows lots of potential.

Transcript

00:00Sometimes I'll get sent a screener, I'll read the logline and go, huh, I kind of want to see that.

00:06And that's definitely the case with the Welsh horror crime flick, Protein.

00:11Craig Russell plays an ex-soldier racked with PTSD and obsessed with going to the gym who has just arrived in town.

00:17He's also a cannibalistic serial killer and when he devours a local dealer,

00:22he inadvertently sparks off a turf war between the local gangs.

00:26Protein is the feature debut of Tony Burke, who is expanding his short film from 2014

00:30and it's surprisingly well shot for a very low-budget movie,

00:34aided by the fact that Burke has a flair for witty dialogue, giving a darkly comic edge to the proceedings.

00:39It's also a very peculiar film, but not quite for the reason you might expect, given the premise.

00:45It definitely has a foot in the exploitation film, with echoes of things like driller killer

00:49and the cannibal scenes are pretty stomach-churning, with some decent gore effects,

00:54but largely implied by the sound design, like slurping the world's grossest protein shake.

01:00But it's a bit of a vigilante movie too, with Russell Soldier targeting bad guys,

01:05especially those that cross him at the gym.

01:08And when it starts, it seems like the film is setting itself up as a commentary on toxic masculinity

01:12and trauma that escalates into violent rage, not just with Russell Soldier,

01:17but also the gang themselves, who begin to get eaten, figuratively, by their own paranoia,

01:23as they believe the murders are by their Albanian rivals.

01:27And Protein has an unusually well-developed set of characters, with Burke trying to subvert stereotypes,

01:32but it does come at a cost, in that it loses sight of those themes, because it bites off more than it can chew.

01:38It becomes this ensemble crime flick, with Russell's quiet loner cannibal sometimes disappearing into the sidelines.

01:46A good example of this is a subplot with two mismatched cops on the case,

01:49played by Andrea Hall and former Corey actor Charles Dale.

01:52He's a bit old-school and chauvinistic, she's a London criminologist,

01:56and they despise each other until they begin to bond over both being recovering alcoholics.

02:02And I did like how their dynamic plays out, but it feels like it's come out of a completely different film,

02:07like it's somehow changed channels to a 9pm detective drama.

02:11It takes up a huge chunk of the middle section of the film,

02:14and Protein leans too heavily on procedural, and an overly interwoven plot with too many players.

02:20It's definitely a curiosity, but it also shows a lot of promise and ambition,

02:24even if the results are not always easily digestible.

02:28It's messy for sure, but if you have the stomach for it, Protein is worth investigating.

Protein (REVIEW) | Projector Shorts | Chew on this cannibal crime flick

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