The Man Inside (2012)

Downloaded a few Brit films to watch for a University Project and this one was easily the best, although Id never heard of it before. Why not????? Its was brilliant. I love it when you discover a gem like this one. Awesome acting by Peter Mullan and the main guy (Bashy) but they were all good. The kid who played Jay was a real talent. hope he's doing other things as he made me cry (wont say how)The boxing was realistic and I really cared about the characters. Great film overall, and I'm surprised I had never heard about it before. Perhaps it never got promoted? I checked the reviews online and they were really good too.I hope other people get to find this film too :)

Engaging, well made urban drama with striking strong performances and a powerful central theme, though the dialog a little rubbish occasionally and there are a couple of embarrassingly bad lines its not a bad film if you got nothing to do and your sitting all alone and there is nothing on t.v to watchif walk into the cinema & found just 2 people in the whole theater --- then you know its time to turn around and walk outanyway this kind of film has been made many times just much betterThe film's main problem relates to dynamics: it slips too quickly between quiet bathos and splenetic rage. In one scene where Clayton and Alexia are cooing over one another and rekindling a romantic flame from the past, it only takes one phone call to transport Clayton to point of wanting to stave her face in with a monkey wrench.

It's not a boxing movie. Because theirs hardly any boxing.It's not a thriller. Because its not thrilling.It is very funny in parts. But its not meant to be a comedy, I think.Performances are laughable. David Harewood is brilliant in Homeland. He is dire in this movie. I think hes trying to play Dr Evil from the Austin Powers movies.Peter Mullan. An amazing actor in everything but this. He just wonders round like hes just been released from some old folks home. Ashley Bashey just looks like hes in pain most of the time and then the tapping starts.The tapping. OMG the tapping. The tapping is so crass and in your face as a motif that you don't know whether to laugh or cry.I did make it all the way through waiting for something to happen ... but it never did. It is mind numbingly dull. Boring, irrelevant, and done a hundred times better by much better film makers.Avoid.

Dan Turner's THE MAN INSIDE is the best British film of this year.Echoing the refined film noir style of Abraham Polonsky, Jules Dassin and Edgar G Ulmer, and displaying a visual skill that Carl Theodor Dreyer and John Cassavetes would have been proud of.Intense, dark, deadly and deeply emotive. Once viewed, London 2012 never ever looks the same.Viewed through the eyes of Clayton Murdoch (Ashley Thomas) who is fighting his personal childhood demons, Turner's feature exposes a selection of inner city characters whose lives are devastated by illness, loss, bereavement and street violence.We enter the world where moral dilemmas are present on every corner, and where the deepest emotional conflicts destroy young lives.In Turner's vision of life, the industrial city is inhabited by those whom the hope had forgotten about, who battle for survival through personal traumas, family tragedy and gangland street culture.In THE MAN INSIDE, we are not only a viewer and a witness, but an active participant in their deep personal drama.As active participants we devour their pain, as we view their razor sharp tears in Turner's widescreen close ups.Unlike the classic film noir protagonists, Thomas' Clayton does not succumb to a violent and untimely end.His determination and belief in what he considers to be morally right, irrespective of expectations or demands placed upon him, preserves the life of those he loves the most. Through his love of life and decency, he incites a humiliating defeat to the violent environment around him, dispelling all prejudice attached to his family background.Turner's feature touches on all crucial issues of modern, 21st century Britain - class, race, unemployment, multi cultural inner city environment, quest for opportunity and status, fear of and experience of failure - in a way which is subtle, yet pertinent and truly captivating.By watching the deep personal drama of the main characters, presented in a framework of traditional film noir, we are brought to some of the most fundamental issues that every industrial society and its cities face today.Fierce, truly captivating and unmissable.