A gang of small-town drug dealing health club rats are set upon by a murderous stranger on this satisfying Welsh style piece.
There are worse movies to be obsessive about than Shane Meadows‘ Lifeless Man’s Sneakers, and that movie’s blood-flecked paw prints are throughout author/director Tony Burke’s witty, Welsh revenge yarn, Protein. The movie cheekily adopts its title from the supposed dietary qualities of human flesh among the many extra determined echelons of the physique constructing group, as our hooded, monosyllabic protagonist, Sion (Craig Russell), is on the town to take out some tinpot trash after which feast on their freshly carved entrails.
On the sidelines is kindly health club employee Katrina (Kezia Burrows) who makes an attempt to befriend the shell-shocked Sion, and whereas he very a lot stays a closed ebook emotionally, he does provide her a secret help by butchering a chauvinist native lout who’s giving her grief. Actually, the horror/slasher factor of the movie is maybe the least fascinating factor about it, as Burke builds up an ensemble of characters who’re all greater than mere useful bit-players serving a hackneyed plot.
For instance, two drug-dealing goons who work for a smarmy native kingpin are secret lovers who’ve been compelled to hide their relationship as a result of air of unreconstructed machismo that pervades their grubby little group. Equally, the 2 cops investigating this rash of disappearances come freighted with their very own traumas, and an initially frosty relationship ultimately thaws into one thing that’s slightly toughing for a movie that, in the principle, focuses on violence, bigotry, exploitation, humiliation and which family instruments are finest for administering ache to your fellow man.
The hyperlink to Lifeless Man’s Sneakers doesn’t start and finish with its angular loner with zero ethical scruples in the case of offing his targets. Burke injects a much-needed hit of parochial humour into proceedings, exemplified by Steve Meo’s hilarious, hapless Kevin, a wannabe wideboy who loves nothing greater than to play dress-up Travis Bickle in his bed room and have yelled arguments together with his (at all times off-camera) mom.
There’re no wheels being reinvented right here by way of tone or narrative, however it’s a very stable style runaround that’s elevated by its occasional and welcome lapses into soulful introversion. It’s extremely satisfying to see a filmmaker transition from a profession making music movies and shorts to a piece which expends effort and time to flesh-out all of its characters – even when that flesh could be ultimately eaten by its cannibalistically-inclined antihero.