THE MARKER

by Mark'd Commode

8 out of 10

Release date: 29th September 2017 (DVD premiere)

Release date: Justin Edgar (We Are The Freaks)

Cast: Frederick Schmidt, John Hannah, Ana Ularu, Struan Rodger, Lara Peake, Jack McMullen, Ian Sharp, Simon Lowe, Patrick Connolly, Barry Aird, Skye Lourie, Cosmo Jarvis, Juliet Oldfield with Cathy Tyson and Andrew Shim

Writer: Justin Edgar

Trailer: THE MARKER

the-marker-british-movie-cover-md

Reminiscent of director Mike Hodges‘ best work like the classic Get Carter, and later efforts like Croupier and I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, this is a sombre crime flick with an interesting lead character.  We’ve been on these streets before though, as this looks could almost be a supernatural remix of the Craig Fairbrass vehicle Breakdown – in which a hit man develops a conscience and turns rogue against his handlers.  Two other films, Assassin (starring Danny Dyer) and The Hunter’s Prayer (starring Sam Worthington) also follow the same arc. The difference being here is that it’s handled aptly, artfully and it’s virtually note-perfect – whereas the others were left struggling to convince or were plain boring.

Wrong-un Marley Dean Jacobs, has something in common with his Dickensian namesake, he also receives repeated spectral visits from a young woman (ANA ULURU – ANACONDA 3) he accidentally killed on a smash and rob raid on some fellow crims. Marley sees her everywhere, during his ten-year stretch in jail and on release where he is welcomed back to work for the same Birmingham crime family. Coincidence is a bitch, especially in fiction, where it turns out that the daughter of the ghost is now embroiled in some trouble involving his employers and life-long friends.  To give away the twists and turns of the plot is a bit unfair to the makers and to viewers but to say it is very, very loosely based on A Christmas Carol should give fans of impressionistic, remakes a fair bit of enjoyment.

The locales and the characters that populate the film are well-etched and make this slow-burning and twisty crime film a must-see. The actors all excel, even John Hannah (THE HURRICANE) who I’ve always found hard to watch – he’ s rarely been better as Marley’s life-long pale.  Old hands Cathy Tyson (MONA LISA) and Struan Rodger (DIAMOND SKULLS) are also excellent in their seedy and untrustworthy supporting roles. But this is Frederick Schmidt’s show – once again he proves to be the independent film scene’s best and brightest break out hope.  With this and the similar Snow In Paradise, he’s laid down the foundations for a very promising acting career.

In a virtually wordless role, Ana Uluru conveys a world of pain and anger, goading Marley to kill everyone who had a part in her demise and her own daughter’s dangerous situation.  It’s an acting master class in economy.

The pace is measured but this works in its favour as you get a real understanding of what the director Justin Edgar and his team were showing us. The devil’s in the details. He’s everywhere you care to look.  This is a film of the different shades of evil and levels of salvation. It’s a shame that this is being distributed on DVD with a cover that looks like The Marker is yet another Steven Seagal slap about wannabe… It’s not, it’s one of the best UK gangster films of the 2010s.

8 out of 10 – Unnerving crime flick set in Birmingham, populated with extremely deadly characters and a vengeful ghost. Recommended whole-heartedly.

Review below by Matt ‘Joe Pesci II’ Usher

This is faint praise but THE MARKER is the kind of film which ought to be a good representative of the lower end of the modern British film industry. It’s better than at least 100 other low budget films I’ve seen in the last 6 years, but that just demonstrates how low standards are when technology is cheap and there’s no-one to say ‘Steve, that’s a terrible idea for a film, don’t do it’. But I digress; THE MARKER is a good film in many ways, but I didn’t like it much.

Our main character, played by Frederick Schmidt, is called Marley Jacobs, which might suggest the film is a cute variation on A CHRISTMAS CAROL. It is not. This is a film which strains strenuously to be edgy, bleak and grim. It’s quite successful at the edginess, bleakness and grimness but I’m not sure our hero’s repentance convinces me.

But what is Marley repentant over? Well, the poor lad has only gone and murdered – sorry – manslaughtered – a woman (Ana, played by Ana Ularu, which almost suggests they didn’t think the character worth naming) in front of her own daughter (Cristina), and now feels bad. The film doesn’t seem particularly interested in how Cristina feels about this, though she later becomes a significant supporting character.

But why is Marley in such a position? He’s a professional thug working (reluctantly as we later discover) for criminal mastermind Brendan Doyle (John Hannah in the second role where he’s played second fiddle to a character called Marley, after weird son-of-Rentaghost sitcom Marley’s Ghosts). For reasons that I’m sure were explained, they spend the early part of the film going around beating up illegal Romanian immigrants, including the unlucky Ana. Marley spends a few years in jail, where he gets beaten up by self-righteous prisoners operating in cahoots with dodgy prison officers. Fortunately Ana turns up as a ghost to keep him company. Whether her haunting him is the source of his repentance or a symptom of it is left enigmatic.

Marley leaves jail and decides to reform himself by returning to work for Brendan who has got a bit higher up the career criminal ladder. We also meet Brendan’s brother Jimmy, a businessman, charitable soul, pillar of the community and all-round good egg. But he’s played by Struan Rodger, possibly the owner of the cruellest eyes in Equity, so it’s reasonable to assume he’s not entirely honest. Jimmy has adopted Cristina, (an improbable development which is explained away reasonably), but Cristina’s now sixteen years old, and, like all sixteen year old girls in films, has absconded. The Doyles bizarrely think it’s a good idea for Marley to get her back.

Suffice to say, Marley does so, encountering some old friends and foes along the way (including Andrew Shim, an actor whose face is crying out ‘why won’t anyone give me a decent role?’), but then circumstances alter and Marley starts shooting people again, almost as if he hasn’t learned anything during his incarceration. But maybe that’s the point. And still guiding him along his path is Ana. At first the film really annoyed me as it looks like she’s there to help poor Marley deal with his guilt over killing her, and why didn’t she, you know, turn up to help her own daughter instead? But Ana turns out to be a bit more involved than the spirits who helped Scrooge along his way, though you have to wait for the film’s final shot to see that. Or, to put it another way, perhaps the film isn’t about Marley’s redemption so much as Anna’s revenge, which makes it more interesting than it seems on the surface.

This is unusually well-acted, well-written and imaginative for a bargain basement thriller. It focuses mostly on character and doesn’t dwell on blood and guts and unnecessary action (though there’s a subplot with a mad gunman), and should be required viewing for anyone wanting to make a film with little money. Frederick Schmidt appears to be an under-appreciated leading man, possibly because he doesn’t sugar-coat his performance – he’s happy to play the role as someone who you’d avoid on a dark night (or a bright afternoon for that matter). John Hannah (quite rightly) makes his hideous character as affable as possible, though you’re never in any doubt over how nasty he is. Ana Ularu does a lot with almost no dialogue.

In narrative terms, the problem with the film is the daughter. Lara Peake is given little to do beyond being a damsel in distress and a thorn in various gangsters’ sides. For the most part she operates according to plot requirements rather than as an independent, fully-formed character (though she does kill a significant baddie). Mind you, one of the film’s strengths is that she and Marley never bond, which would certainly happen in a more Hollywoodish version of the story. Even so, I get the feeling that in following Marley’s story the film-makers didn’t do enough about the characters surrounding him, which is a shame, and which means good actors like Cathy Tyson are wasted.

And I thought the film rather lathers in its own grimness. This is a film where everyone is bleak and despicable and no-one’s going to reach old age without getting lots of other people to stab each other in the back. It’s the sort of world where social workers are all corrupt (and corrupting), the police are almost entirely absent, the courts are lenient and even the sympathetic characters leave needles lying around for their kids to mess about with. Whereas A Christmas Carol is about alleviating misery, THE MARKER seems a bit too happy (if that’s the word) to wallow in squalor, its overall moral seemingly ‘first you’re miserable, then you’re dead, and even that might not be the end’. So let me try to shoehorn a bit of that Dickensian spirit into this review at least, and wish you a Merry Christmas, and God Bless Us, Every One!

WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT ACTOR IN BEFORE?

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