Review: Wasteland (2012)

Cast: Luke Treadaway, Iwan Rheon, Matthew Lewis
Director: Rowan Athale
Country: UK
Genre: Crime | Drama | Thriller
Official Trailer: Here

Editor’s Note: Wasteland is now open in limited release and on VOD

Derogatory though its application may mostly be, the term “geezer” is a useful delineation for the gangster film, offering an apt description of the particularly British sensibility that’s stolen a good chunk of the genre’s audience from American shores. Under the auspices—for better or worse—of Guy Ritchie’s success, building on the legacy of the same wave of ‘60s crime films that shot Michael Caine to success, these geezers have all-but dominated British cinema across the last decade to no shortage of critical chagrin. Enter Wasteland, Rowan Athale’s slyly subversive effort to kick the geezer subgenre about the backside, and hopefully land it face first in 2013.

It’s as though Athale expressly seeks to frame his story within its particular geographical context: as far removed in place as in mannerism from the American gangster films which all too many geezer movies have aped.

There’s a healthy dose of self-awareness to Athale’s script, which encloses a traditional heist movie within the frame of a police interrogation. “Who’s ‘they’?” sneers Harvey, the 22 year-old ex-con asked to speak his name into a tape recorder for “their” benefit. “Whoever’s listening,” is the reply. It’s no great stretch to position ourselves in that role; indeed, the entirety of the ensuing film is predicated on our being the ones who listen, who interpret this story and, in turn, have our interpretations undermined. In a telling landscape shot that begins Harvey’s recitation of the six weeks that led to his current situation, the car carrying him from prison is framed by the vast expanse of agrarian England. It’s as though Athale expressly seeks to frame his story within its particular geographical context: as far removed in place as in mannerism from the American gangster films which all too many geezer movies have aped.

Luke Treadaway fills Harvey’s shoes with a boisterous charm that makes him, even before the film reveals his pre-conviction innocence, hard not to like. He finds firm support in a crop of young British screen talent, namely Misfits’ Iwan Rheon and Harry Potter’s Matthew Lewis, whose characters happily join Harvey in planning his vengeful heist. Athale, in his feature directorial debut, gestures commendably toward an array of social issues, none more prominently than the lacking prospects of contemporary youth when the fourth member of this haphazard crew laments the uselessness of his training as a welder. It’s in moments like these that Athale invests the laddish culture in which Harvey and co. thrive with a modicum of reality, but it’s not long before his fixation with this life passes from intrigue to involvement, and the leerier aspects of this life become more celebrated than surveyed.

It’s a staple structural aspect of the heist movie, certainly, but rarely is it deployed with such a frustrating sense of… of intellectual elitism, perhaps. By the time the film concludes, after some twenty minutes of showing us how smart it’s been, the ample character work with which it opened seems but a bygone memory.

But beyond its growingly problematic approach to its characters, Wasteland falls prey to an altogether more worrying flaw: the framing narrative equates, eventually, to a sort of storytelling braggadocio, as though Athale is so terribly pleased with his plotting that he feels compelled to flaunt it. It sees the film descend at times—most prominently in its final act—into self-satisfied expository montages set to the tune of some pulsating music and Treadaway’s step-by-step narration. He, Treadaway, smirks with glee as he reveals the intricacy of his plan to the nodding inspector—nicely played by the ever-reliable Timothy Spall—and it’s difficult not to read that as an extension of Athale’s own smugness in having hidden his intentions from the audience. It’s a staple structural aspect of the heist movie, certainly, but rarely is it deployed with such a frustrating sense of… of intellectual elitism, perhaps. By the time the film concludes, after some twenty minutes of showing us how smart it’s been, the ample character work with which it opened seems but a bygone memory.

Wasteland may free itself from certain absurdly aggrandised trappings that define the bulk of geezer narratives, but that doesn’t allow it to escape the mediocrity of its own approach, however refreshing its refusals may be. Its refutation of gangster culture as irreconcilable within this social context is a delight to behold; that it then proceeds to embroil itself within just as problematic—if much more realistic—a culture is a dreadful disappointment. Athale has shown here that he possesses smarts in spades; to go almost immediately and lend credence to one archetype after dismantling another seems a curious lapse of judgement.

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Ronan Doyle

Director of Movies On Demand & Sr. Staff Film Critic at Next Projection

Having spent the vast majority of my life sharing in the all too prevalent belief than cinema is merely dumbed-down weekend escapism for the masses, I was lucky enough to turn on a television at the exact right moment to have my perspectives on the medium completely transformed. Those first two and a half hours marked the beginning of a new life revolving around—maybe even depending upon—the screen and the depth of artistry, intellectual stimulation, and emotional exhilaration it can provide.

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