This film is noteworthy for being the directorial debut of Gareth Evans, best know for making the "Raid" films a few years after this. This film is something totally different.
It's a very low-budget crime film. It's very amateurish. The acting is pretty bad, with one notable exception. And the movie sounds terrible. The audio is very bad for the duration of the film, peaking all over the place and cutting in and out, which makes this very difficult and frustrating to watch. It's almost a chore for that reason. When sound is done well in a movie, it goes unnoticed by most. That's the goal. Here, however, it is all too noticeable and a constant distraction and hindrance. It makes the film feel like a rough cut, like it's unfinished.
It even feels like there are some scenes missing. I understand that they didn't want to spoon-feed us every answer here, but it feels like some stuff was unintentionally left out, as if they never got around to shooting it or just tired or ran out of time or money and gave up.
Apart from that, however, the story is actually decent. And the camerawork is fun. They really made the most out of their low-quality digital camera gear. The video editing is well-done as well. You can sort of see hints of things to come in this early film of his. Notably, the action and violence pretty well done compared to the more lacking dramatic moments, so it's no surprise Evans would go on to focus on more action-heavy films.
Additionally, the filmmakers made use of some pretty good locations for such a low budget film. They got creative when they had to, and it really pays off here. Overall, this film feels a bit like Christopher Nolan's "Following," except with really bad audio and not nearly as much of that low-budget charm.
Also worth mentioning are a few very fun, original parts that are like nothing I've seen anywhere else. Most of these take place during the film's climax, which is fun but still sounds just as bad as the rest of the film. There are three or four of these moments, and they're really wonderful, gritty, brutal and strange moments that almost make the whole experience worthwhile.
The film is highly flawed, but I think that its makers really learned something from it. I think it's thanks to this film that Evans was able to make a better film the next time around, and then an even better one after that. He's learned a lot and come a long way.
