Reckoning Day, the directorial debut from Rise of the Footsoldier's Julian Gilbey, is a case of over-enthusiastic young British film-makers getting in well over their collective head; the green cast and wet-behind-the-ears crew do their best to lend credence to Gilbey's ill-conceived and ultimately baffling vision, but their best ain't anywhere near good enough, their lack of experience only all too obvious.
The scrawny twenty-something students who unconvincingly play the film's tough guys are really embarrassing, particularly since nearly all of them feel the need to utter their terrible dialogue whilst doing an awful impression of Clint Eastwood; meanwhile, Gilbey directs and edits as though he's pumped himself full of the film's designer drug 'unseen force', utilising rapid cuts, crazy camera angles and over-stylised visuals befitting of a person off their tits on insanely strong narcotics.
As a result, the film stumbles around aimlessly from the start, like one of its characters that has been shot in both legs. It's virtually impossible to follow what is going on, meaning that for the most part, the viewer will be totally nonplussed about who is shooting who and why. The only possible enjoyment to be gleaned from this mess is from the many squib-tastic bullet hits and some delirious power-tool violence that includes a chainsaw duel (always popular avec moi!), but all the splatter in the world won't make me want to watch this one again.