Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: James Kermack
Starring: Moe Dunford, Kate Dickie, Camille Rowe, Phil Davis, Alex Ferns, Olivier
Richters, Jaime Winstone, Gethin Anthony, Sebastien Foucan
If you asked me to name my least favourite movie decade, the noughties
would roll off my tongue. Aside from a few standouts like
Zodiac, There Will Be Blood and the first two instalments of the
Final Destination series, it was largely a decade of cinematic
spam. In their dying days, video stores saw their shelves clogged up with
awful British imitations of Guy Ritchie, whose own films were themselves
awful British knockoffs of Tarantino. Eventually American filmmakers got in
on the act with terrible action movies like Smokin' Aces and
Lucky Number Slevin. You could easily locate such movies in your local Blockbuster because
their covers always featured an actor trying to look tough while holding a
gun in each hand. These movies were inevitably an insufferable hodge podge
of sub Shane Black dialogue and poorly staged action scenes. Thank God they
died out over the last decade.
Or did they? Writer/director James Kermack seeks to revitalise this
woeful sub-genre with Knuckledust, a film that fails to live up to its testosterone soaked moniker.
The title refers to Club Knuckledust, an illegal fight club where
bare-knuckle brawlers beat each other to the death. As the club's sultry
owner, Serena (Camille Rowe), puts it, she hires ex-military men "who
won't be missed." Her latest acquisition is ex-marine Hard Eight (Moe Dunford), who is scheduled to fight Rawbone (Olivier Richters), a giant
whose muscly frame towers over him. Hard Eight has been
instructed to allow himself to be killed in the third round, or else his
girlfriend, Chrissy (Amy Bailey), will be shot by the two hitmen
stationed at her flat. This doesn't seem to bother Hard Eight, who pulls out
a concealed pistol and plants a bullet between Rawbone's eyes.
When the police arrive at Club Knuckledust, they find Hard Eight the sole
survivor of what appears to be a massacre. As he is questioned by Chief
Inspector Keaton (Kate Dickie), he spins a story of how he found
himself at the club, and what exactly transpired. Meanwhile, nerdy tech guy
Hooper (Dave Bibby) sifts through the club's CCTV footage in search
of the truth.
What plays out is a cross between The Usual Suspects and a
screen adaptation of some '90s sideways scrolling beat 'em up arcade game.
Dunford's Hard Eight takes the Kevin Spacey role here of the unreliable
narrator, and while the Irish actor is a charismatic presence, he's saddled
with page after page of interminable exposition.
Knuckledust's title suggests a martial arts fest, but the onscreen brawls are few and
far between. More often we see the aftermath of such incidents, and when we
do witness Hard Eight in action the set-pieces are generic and derivative,
including yet another pale imitation of the iconic corridor massacre from
Park Chan-wook's Oldboy. The overbearing hard rock meets electro score does its best to make us
feel a shot of adrenaline but it often drowns out the dialogue (which may
not be a bad thing in this case).
In place of muscular action, Knuckledust features a bloated
ensemble of characters all suffering from verbal diarrhea. There are some
talented actors at work here, but even the likes of Dunford and Dickie can't
liven up this poorly paced snoozer. If you're expecting a slugfest, you'll
be surprised to find a movie that's simply sluggish.
