Down Terrace 2010

Stephen Holden, New York Times: A grimly amusing portrait of a closed system in which the pressure is building to an explosion. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: This muted mobster story reminds us that the ties that bind can also gag you, garrote you and slowly deaden your soul. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: A shambling gangster movie about father and son ex-cons (played by Robert and Robin Hill) who passive-aggressively pick at each other in between meeting with their eccentric associates. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: A dark and hilarious thwomping of the whole miserablist British gangster genre. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: Down Terrace is long on talk but generates its own internal rhythms and pace that makes it feel bracing and vibrantly alive. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Down Terrace is the auspicious feature debut of Ben Wheatley, who's spent a decade directing sitcoms, Web-isodes and commercials while fruitlessly pitching scripts to Hollywood. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Its litany of outrageous abuses and horrible crimes, as it careens from delicately phrased dinner-table insults to old ladies murdered in the street, is often gaspingly, ridiculously funny. Read more

Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail: The British do kitchen-sink realism extremely well; they also have a nice way with black comedy. It's rare, however, to see the two as wickedly combined as they are in Down Terrace. Read more

Jason Anderson, Toronto Star: A low-budget effort by British director Ben Wheatley, Down Terrace is an enjoyably nasty piece of business about a down-market sort of underworld clan. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: Verbal aggression makes for the biggest laughs and the surest signs of moral decay. Read more