Title: Blood

Director: Nick Murphy

Starring: Paul Bettany, Stephen Graham, Brian Cox, Mark Strong, Ben Crompton.

What goes around come around. Again and again. Rage sometimes takes over focus. Actions become fatal. And the question that comes up is whether who is in the wrong will get away with it, for the truth can’t be buried forever.

BAFTA winner for Best Drama Serial, Nick Murphy, gives life to ‘Blood,’ a thriller charting the moral collapse of a police family, where two brothers, Joe and Chrissie Fairburn, break down under the huge pressure of living in the shadow of their father who was the former police chief. While investigating the murder of a young girl, in their shabby English seaside town, Joe lets emotions get the better and commits a terrible crime. The siblings’ fear of being caught, especially by their colleague Robert, turns their lives into hell with overwhelming feelings.

This British crime thriller, evokes some of the themes of Woody Allen’s ‘Cassandra’s Dream,’ crime, punishment, masculinity and family loyalty. George Richmond, with his cold-coloured and foggy cinematography enhances the director’s shots. Nick Murphy’s expedient of making Joe’s victim appear as a ghost – somehow like the Shakespearean Banquo (Macbeth) or the Dickensian Marlowe (A Christmas Carol) – is cinematographically mind-boggling. Nevertheless the story stands mostly on the shoulders of the great lead actor Paul Bettany, who coalesces his character’s cynicism with all the torments given by his sense of guilt. Also Mark Strong, Stephen Graham and Brian Cox deliver a very powerful performance that commends a story that mimics Greek tragedy following irksome convention.

Technical: A

Acting: A

Story: C

Overall: B

Written by: Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi