Review: Slayground

Peter Coyote plays Stone, a crim involved in a plot to rob an armoured truck. Things go awry when the initial getaway driver picks up the wrong gal, and the nervy replacement getaway driver they find at the last minute (a young Ned Eisenberg) accidentally hits another car after the job, killing a young female passenger of said vehicle. The victim’s distraught, rich father (Michael Ryan) is a vengeful sort and hires a shadowy hitman (Philip Sayer) to take the crew out one by one. Obviously not wanting to be next on the kill list, Stone decides to bugger off to England, looking up his old pal Terry (Mel Smith). However, Terry’s seaside amusement park isn’t doing so well financially, and he’s in serious trouble of his own. Meanwhile, it would appear that the shadowy hitman has travelled across the pond to stalk and take Stone out. Billie Whitelaw plays Smith’s live-in lover Madge, who doesn’t like the trouble that seems to follow Stone, fearing for poor Terry. Moustachioed character actor P.H. Moriarty (barely) turns up as a henchman, while Rosemary Martin briefly appears as a doctor.

With a title that sounds like a slasher movie, this 1983 crime flick from debut feature director Terry Bedford (a lighting cameraman on “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” in his one cinematic directorial effort) does have a slight stalk-and-slash (or stalk-and-shoot) vibe about it, I suppose. Scripted by Trevor Preston (who later wrote the dour “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead”), it’s based on a book by Richard Stark, the pseudonym for author Donald E. Westlake. Part of his prolific “Parker” series of novels (the character strangely renamed Stone here), I’m not sure if the book has the same vibe as the film, but the film is certainly a little different from the usual British crime flick. I just wish it wasn’t so uneven. In fact, some aspects have both a positive and negative element to them. A young-ish Ned Eisenberg impresses early on as a driver who drives way too fast when nervous, and the opening twenty minutes or so certainly aren’t boring. However, some of the storytelling is clunky and feels like bits have been left on the cutting room floor in order to give it a good pace (Particularly, it seems that the dead girl’s father gets into revenge mode awfully quickly. How did he even find out who the culprits were when there weren’t any witnesses?). The synth score by Colin Towns (whose score was the only merit to the abysmal “Vampire’s Kiss”) is ridiculously out-of-place, though I did enjoy hearing George Thoroughgood’s ‘Bad to the Bone’ at the outset.

The assassin casts a nice shadowy figure, even if the Darth Vader breathing is a tad corny. He’s cool and creepy. In fact, the highlight of the film by far is the dark but good-looking cinematography by Stephen Smith (who has mostly worked as an assistant cameraman and 2^nd Unit roles). Aside from that, the best thing here is the performance by Peter Coyote. Given a rare lead role, the weary-looking actor won’t be everyone’s idea of a leading man, but he works fine for me here. He would’ve made a killing in 40s/50s film noir roles. Aside from him, comedian Mel Smith is OK as his English friend (a role that in the 60s would’ve likely gone to Roy Kinnear), but the talented Billie Whitelaw is thoroughly wasted as Smith’s girlfriend. Tough-looking P.H. Moriarty deserved a bigger role too, if you ask me. If you have to see the film, certainly stick around for the funhouse finale, it’s hilarious but also visually interesting. Mostly hilarious, though.

This isn’t a bad film, but it’s also easy to see why it has been forgotten. Peter Coyote is good, the lighting is excellent, and the assassin has a cool visage. Storytelling is uneven, supporting cast wasted, and the music score is cheap and inappropriate. “Get Carter” it ain’t, but it does have a slightly different vibe to the norm that sees it hard to dismiss entirely. It wouldn’t surprise me if the film has a small cult following of people more forgiving than I.

Rating: C+