A contemporary hard boiled private detective neo noir thriller set in London.
The voiceover is provided by Tommy Akhtar (Riz Ahmed) looking after his cricket mad dad (Roshan Seth.) He is a hard drinking, chain smoking rather dinghy private eye in London.
A prostitute called Melody (Cush Jumbo) hires him to find fellow prostitute Natasha who has gone missing after going off with a new client. Tommy finds the client dead in a hotel room.
As Tommy delves deeper he comes across an old friend, who is now a wealthy property developer, trying to take the drug riddled estates, upmarket. The dead client was an associate of this developer. Tommy soon finds the security services sniffing around him. The dead man was also hanging around an imam who might be radicalising the youth, he certainly has a little gang who is chasing away drug dealers.
As the film goes on, Tommy recalls his past, 20 years ago when he fancied his best mate's girl Shelley (Billie Piper.) We gather his mate died but he sees Shelley again who is now a single mother and both rekindle their affections for each other.
There is nothing too original about City of Tiny Lights, we can sort of guess who will turn out to be the culprit. It all feels a little bleak and jagged. The movie needed more humour and should had been more offbeat. Albert Finney got it right in Stephen Frears 'Gumshoe' back in 1971.
The voiceover is provided by Tommy Akhtar (Riz Ahmed) looking after his cricket mad dad (Roshan Seth.) He is a hard drinking, chain smoking rather dinghy private eye in London.
A prostitute called Melody (Cush Jumbo) hires him to find fellow prostitute Natasha who has gone missing after going off with a new client. Tommy finds the client dead in a hotel room.
As Tommy delves deeper he comes across an old friend, who is now a wealthy property developer, trying to take the drug riddled estates, upmarket. The dead client was an associate of this developer. Tommy soon finds the security services sniffing around him. The dead man was also hanging around an imam who might be radicalising the youth, he certainly has a little gang who is chasing away drug dealers.
As the film goes on, Tommy recalls his past, 20 years ago when he fancied his best mate's girl Shelley (Billie Piper.) We gather his mate died but he sees Shelley again who is now a single mother and both rekindle their affections for each other.
There is nothing too original about City of Tiny Lights, we can sort of guess who will turn out to be the culprit. It all feels a little bleak and jagged. The movie needed more humour and should had been more offbeat. Albert Finney got it right in Stephen Frears 'Gumshoe' back in 1971.