Film

New Town Killers

Cert: 15

Description: Sean agrees to help his older sister Alice pay off her mounting debts. When a half-hearted effort to sell his body ends in failure, Sean foolishly accepts an intriguing offer to play high stakes cat and mouse with shady duo Alastair and Jamie. If Sean can evade the two men until 9am the following morning, they will clear all of Alice's debts. Ignoring the possible penalty for losing the game, Sean races into the Scottish capital, looking for a cosy hiding place.

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Dir: Richard Jobson.

Cast: James Anthony Pearson, Dougray Scott, Alastair Mackenzie, Liz White, Shelley Conn

Country: UK.

Year: 2008.

Duration: 100mins

Rich and poor divide in New Town Killers

New Town Killers: more than just a chase movie

By Derek Malcolm
12 Jun 2009

There have been a number of films about hunters pursuing human prey for kicks, but Richard Jobson’s thriller, set in Edinburgh, the film-maker’s home town, is more than a chase movie.

The hunters are two bankers (Dougray Scott and Alastair Mackenzie). The hunted is James Anthony Pearson’s parentless teenager, who lives with his pregnant sister on a housing estate and accepts the challenge for the money to get them both out of trouble.

Coming after Jobson’s 16 Years of Alcohol and A Woman in Winter, New Town Killers is clearly an attempt to find a more commercial subject.

It is tightly constructed and successfully portrays the underlying tension between Edinburgh’s newly prosperous and those who never had anything and never will.