Review by Stephanie Scaife
Piggy is the debut feature film of young Brit writer and director Kieron Hawkes. It is a psychological revenge thriller starring Martin Compston (The Disappearance of Alice Creed, Sweet Sixteen), Neil Maskell (Kill List) and Paul Anderson (A Lonely Place to Die). Although a fairly solid effort from all concerned it is a glaringly obvious first feature that falls foul to many conventional mistakes and contrivances associated with an initial outing as a filmmaker.
Joe (Compston) is a shy and mild mannered young man who by day earns his living as a messenger in central London and who by night gets stoned alone in his dingy apartment. Everything changes one day when his older and far more gregarious brother John (Maskell) shows up unexpectedly at his front door. John gradually starts to bring Joe out of his shell, taking him out drinking, introducing him to his friends and in particular Claire (Louise Dylan) who Joe is instantly smitten with. However, as is generally the case with such films, things take a turn for the worse and John is stabbed and killed by a gang after an altercation in the pub.
The despair of John’s death sends Joe deeper into himself as he resorts back to his shy and reclusive ways once more; that is until the mysterious Piggy (Anderson) shows up on his doorstep. Piggy claims to be an old friend of John’s and wants to help Joe get revenge on the people responsible for the murder. Piggy is charismatic and persuasive and Joe soon falls under his spell, reluctantly at first, but as they track down each person responsible for John’s death he increasingly starts to relish the violence and retribution along with his new found, sociopathic best friend.
The main problem is in the writing. Piggy offers little in the way of originality and the “twist” ending is glaringly obvious from the outset. Not to mention the dreadful, overly emo first person voice-over from Joe which is almost entirely unnecessary and often so pretentious it becomes cringe worthy. This also isn’t helped by an overbearing soundtrack that often distracts from the film and cues every emotion as subtly as a brick to the head. It’s a shame because the acting in universally pretty decent, particularly from Compston, and Anderson does his very best with Piggy who is little more than a two dimensional dial-a-psycho with a taxidermy collection. The character of Claire is also severely underwritten to the point where her character merely provides fodder to exhibit Joe’s angst and little else, not to mention her motivations (along with pretty much everyone else’s) are largely unexplained, leaving a few puzzling plot holes.
Luckily Hawkes is a better director than he is writer and the film certainly looks fantastic, thanks to cinematographer James Friend, capturing the grittiness of the subject matter and displaying the darker side of London life effectively. Piggy isn’t a terrible film and Hawkes clearly shows some promise as a filmmaker, but it’s a very flawed first attempt. He cites Gaspar Noe, Michael Haneke and Shane Meadows as inspiration in the press notes, but what we have with Piggy is merely a substandard Harry Brown. Despite a few affecting scenes, particularly during the first half of the film, and some impressive violent set pieces this is otherwise a sadly dull affair with only the slightest glimmer of potential that veers it away from being downright awful, although only just.
Piggy has a limited UK cinema release from 4 May and is available on DVD from 21 May, through Metrodome.