The following review is going to be quite negative; something I don't like doing, but in this case it's born out of frustration as the BFI, Film 4 and Tribecca are all behind 'Hyena' and it just makes me scream aloud WHY?! I'm clearly missing something. I know it's a low budget thriller and the fact any film gets made yet alone released is quite an achievement but seriously, why bother if there's nothing original to say or show when you aren't working under the overly regimented eye of a powerhouse studio? Director Gerard Johnson is also the screenwriter and this really needed a second stronger writer to edit it down and polish up some of the horrible or just too 'on-the-nose' dialogue that results in cliché. For a writer/director in his forties the script is very immature and the (visual) direction seems (probably intentionally) shot from the hip as 99% of it is hand-held close up or MCU work with countless shots following behind Gerard Butler lookalike Peter Ferdinando as he walks. Ferdinando here isn't a strong enough an actor to carry this, however his given dialogue could take a lot of the blame although many of his emotion and reaction shots look like the editor has cut in the bad takes. Mentioning the editing, the film has so much padding and could easily be relieved of a good 10 minutes from its over-long 112 minute running time. How many montage-style scenes were there of characters doing things (drinking and drug taking mostly) set to music that didn't really progress the plot? And what was with the male topless food fight? For a 'tough cop' movie there are a number of homo-erotic moments here that feel out of place. MyAnna Buring was there
. to collect a pay-check? Given NOTHING to do. The ending I won't talk about, although it doesn't work in this scenario. But then again I couldn't have cared less about any of the characters outcomes and the cut to black was in fact quite a relief. Sharing many of Ben Wheatley's regular cast members, director Johnson adapts a similar cinema verite-style as seen in 'Kill List' but overall it just feels like lazy filmmaking. As I say, I think I'm missing something. Or is mediocrity the new "it'll do"?
Review of Hyena
