By Pete Mills, on 26-01-2008 19:52

The Purifiers Distributor: Lions Gate Home Entertainment Format: Pal Region 2 Length: 76 mins Aspect Ratio: Widescreen (16:9) Audio: English Subtitles: English Extras: Interactive Menus, Scene Access Sound: Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1

Year of Release: 2004; Origin: United Kingdom; Studio: Vestry Films; Length: 78min.

Director: Richard Jobson; Producer: Bill Kenwright, Chris Atkins, Richard Jobson; Script: Richard Jobson; Action Director: Gordon Alexander; Cast: Kevin McKidd, Gordon Alexander, Dominic Monaghan, Amber Sainsbury, Rachel Grant, Robyn Kerr.

John (Alexander) is the leader of the ‘Purifiers’, a rabble of fresh young fillies and hunky acrobats who try to utilise their slow motion fighting attributes for good, rather than evil. Much unlike Moses (McKidd), a top Scottish bastard who talks in biblical proportions of a future under one totalitarian regime, who assembles all street gangs under one roof to offer them an ultimatum of either joining him or suffering a kick in the face. Troubled Purifier Sol (Monaghan, from Lost and Lord of the Rings) has ambitions beyond John’s hippy utopian dreams and swiftly joins Moses in his evil HQ to double cross his former associates. Upon refusing his proposition, John and co leave Moses’ compound and are hounded by every two-bit cockney kung fu gangster in town, until the group separate and divide on issues of loyalty, pride and justice, leaving John to find his own path and tackle things in his own way.

Review

A dumb film, but spirited nonetheless, The Purifiers attempts a brave and noble thing in tackling the big budgets of Hollywood and the expertise of Hong Kong to create their own brand of UK martial arts film. The British underground scene is ripe with low budget martial arts fare, more than you might expect, with very few making the cut between a labour of love and a profitable margin. So hats off to the Lottery Fund for financing such a bold project and venturing into quite dangerous, off kilter terrain with the sort of budget often reserved for ‘safe’ British money spinners, like rom coms, period dramas, and soap operas set in hospitals. But the problem with a British action film is that we are an essentially reserved and antiquated society where guns and hand grenades feature most sparingly in our culture. As with the themes explored in Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz, attempts to replicate action scenes in this manner can only be deemed accessible if done in an ironic manner, and most notably for comedy. Why the hell do you think James Bond always travels abroad to kill people? There’s nothing believable, for a British audience, about a guy off-loading two semi automatic machines guys in both hands while escaping a fiery missile attack in one of the changing rooms at Dorothy Perkins. In movie terms, Britain is the sort of place to come back to after a day’s rampant killing and settle down with a cup of tea.

Director Jobson is all too aware of his country’s cinematic limitations, and he makes two inspired decisions: choosing the city of Glasgow as the base of his crime spree, where impoverished out-casting and antisocial behavior is ripe and of a high national concern, utilising the Purifier theme as a last ditch metaphor for citizens to formulate their own stance against the world’s injustices. And secondly, he gets rid of the notion of guns altogether, which ultimately downplays the immediacy and seriousness of the whole thing, but opens the floodgates for the martial artists, acrobats, stunt doubles and fight coordinators of Great Britain to show off what they’ve learnt.

And the action scenes are good, even if the majority of the cast are a little unsteady on their feet (particularly McKidd and Monaghan, who won't find Jet Li quaking in his boots just yet). The best fighters are those featured briefly in horribly wooden cameos, and the body doubles that perform all the aerial battles and high flying scissor kicks. Gordon Alexander, who’s like a kung fu Alan Shearer, can at least act convincingly as well as do a back summersault, which makes him practically a god-send in a movie where none of the actors can comfortably do both. As a leading man, you’ll find more character down the back of your sofa, but his amiable traits are at least competent enough to make you believe that all this nonsense could plausible take place. While Kevin McKidd (later to appear in Rome) acts like Begby in Trainspotting, spitting dialogue like some demented office Nazi, and slightly too textbook to really give you the jitters.

This sums up the whole film in many ways, which seems to completely loose interest with itself by the end. The uneasy alliance of cartoon violence and potty mouth attitude strikes an uncertain chord with the sort of crowd of which they’re trying to appeal, and if things were toned down slightly then this could make for a really good family movie. And conversely, if this had a bit more blood, sex and explosion, then perhaps more people would take an interest. As it stands, however, it’s passable enough, with its heart in the right place: the refreshing martial arts scenes are conducted with a great verve and passion, and although they are still a million miles from HK standards, at least the UK can now move a little step closer.