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Adapted for the screen by Joe Penhall from his award-winning play which went down well at the Royal Court, this is the kind of film where - because the lead actors have so much to do and are thus rarely off the screen - bad acting would be exposed. But first-time film director Simon Cellan Jones (who made "Our Friends in the North" and an episode of "Cracker" for television) is lucky to have landed Daniel Craig and David Morrissey, both of whom are good at rendering introspection dramatic. Craig's versatility has ranged across "Elizabeth" and "Love is the Devil", while Morrissey was outstanding as a civil servant unravelling in TV's "Holding On".
Here they play two brothers, Ray (Craig) - who has just been released from a psychiatric hospital - and Pete (Morrissey) - who works dawn till dusk running the Shepherd's Bush eatery (greasy spoon by day, yuppie paradise by night) he inherited from his father. Pete now has to find time to look after Ray, insist that he take his medication and fret over him as he edges towards a relationship with Laura, an unhappy Glaswegian girl (Kelly Macdonald, aka 'Diane' in "Trainspotting") who has been battered by her husband.
Unfortunately, Cellan Jones seems to enjoy tracking Ray and Laura just a bit too much as they begin their affair and, though jolly to watch, this snapshot adds nothing in dramatic terms. Equally undercooked is Pete's burgeoning relationship with his waitress (Julie Graham). Yet the heart of the film, the relationship between the brothers, is wonderfully full, and Ray's instability is capably reflected in the uncertainty and random violence of Shepherd's Bush. With apologies to all our readers in London W12.
