Tony (2010)

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

A thriller centered on a serial killer in a rundown London suburb... Hilarity ensues.While this film has the standard societal problems of drug use, prostitution and more, it differs in that our protagonist (if you can call him that) is the most socially awkward person imaginable. He prefers to cuddle with prostitutes rather than have sex, and he may never have even touched a beer. Watching him in these environments is painful.I had expected this to be like "Evil Ed", but with action films rather than horror. That is certainly not the case. The idea that he watches a lot of action films is quite played down and not nearly as important as I was lead to believe. The horror aspects in general are minor... this is not a typical serial killer film. At all.Is it good? Maybe, maybe not. I found it rather boring and as I said, painful. Maybe I went into it expecting the wrong thing and that ruined it for me. But it just never worked.

Tony is a bleak but brilliant film. It takes us through a week in the life of an East London jobless loner who spends most days watching 80s action films on an ancient video recorder and even older TV. Somewhat of a sociopath with very few social skills, he endeavours to strike up conversations with the sad and dispossessed he meets as he trudges the streets.Using a phone box one day, he meets two crack-heads and invites them back to his seedy flat. Once they're off their threepenny bits, he calmly asphyxiates one, chopping his body into pieces before dumping them in a canal. It's not a life-affirming film but it is riveting. It's hard to believe that Tony is director Gerard Johnson's debut feature film as he directs with a light but confident touch and an eye for the nuances of human existence.It's also something of a family affair: director Gerard Johnson is the brother of The The's Matt Johnson and Matt provides the haunting soundtrack (CD available at www.thethe.com). Gerard and Matt's dad Eddie plays a customer in a pub scene. Eddie was a pub landlord in east London.The DVD contains commentary from Peter Ferdinando who plays Tony and features Mug, a short film made by Gerard Johnson a few years before he made Tony. It also features a shorter earlier version of Tony again starring Peter Ferdinando and Lucy Flack who also appears in Mug.

Contains one of the funniest lines ever.Cop:Where were you on Tuesday night? Tony: I was watching Gary Busey in "Hider in the House".!!! GENIUS Tony wanders round the streets of London trying to make friends or at least spark up conversations with those around him.At night he watches his impressive collection of late 80s to mid 90s action movies. Inbetween this he's either killing those who sleight him or cutting up the bodies of previous victims. Bizzarly half the time Tony comes across as a sorryfull character and you do feel for him, especially during the job centre / job interview scenes.If you liked "dead mans shoes" you'll like this

This a difficult film to review without giving away too much and other reviewers have already drawn the outline: it's about a killer. An outstanding performance by Peter Fernandino makes it frighteningly believable. It is short, maybe too short; and leaves all sort of questions hanging unanswered.That's also a strength in that it leaves you wondering. If the characters don't remind you, vaguely at least, of people you know, people you've met. or people you've heard about, then you should get out more. Many people go missing - let's hope this isn't what happens to them...