Director: Paul Andrew Williams
Writer: Paul Andrew Williams
Starring: Neil Maskell, David Hayman, Lois Brabin-Platt
Year: 2021
Duration: 88 mins
Country: UK
BBFC Certification: 18
British director Paul Andrew Williams has certainly marched to his own drumbeat throughout his career. Bursting onto the scene in 2006 with the brilliant crime thriller London to Brighton, he then confounded his fans (and a fair few critics) by following up his debut film not with another slice of gritty urban realism but instead with a wild Sam Rami horror homage called The Cottage. Refusing to be pigeonholed, Williams retuned to a crime milieu with Cherry Tree Lane in 2010 before taking a delightful left turn with Song For Marion, a gentle comedy drama about a widowed Terrance Stamp joining a local choir.
We should always fully applaud and support any director or writer who is brave and bold enough to try and break out of the genre which first established them. Unfortunately it seems that the industry and audiences don’t always agree – Williams spent the subsequent decade working in television, with his film career seemingly on permanent hold…until Bull, that is. Made cheaply and quickly in the midst of the COVID pandemic, Bull sees Williams return to the dark, urban crime story that first established him, resulting in a film that not only eclipses his wonderfully assured debut but that proves him to be one of the UK’s most talented yet wildly under appreciated filmmakers.
Bull’s story is brutally simple. After a ten year absence, Bull (Neill Maskell) returns to his former gang’s old stomping ground into order to wreck vengeance on the crime family that kidnapped his son and left him for dead. What follows is a starkly brutal, nihilistic descent into retribution and vengeance that punctuates its atmosphere of slowly creeping dread with moments of extreme, graphic violence. Some have compared William’s tale to Mike Hodge’s classic Get Carter, yet Bull shares far more in common with Shane Meadows’ 2003 masterpiece Dead Man’s Shoes, with both films furrowing a similar vein of bleak pessimism out of their deceptively simple retributive narratives.
I say deceptively simple, as while Bull is a film with a lean, taut plot that carries no hints of fat or excess, Williams constructs his story with elliptical flair, cleverly intercutting between time periods that slowly reveals his story’s dark, brutal heart. It is wonderfully constructed, keeping the audience on their toes and ensuring that an air of mystery remains throughout as Bull slowly and methodically works his way through the gang that betrayed him.
Listening to the extras contained on the disc, it is clear that Bull was made with very little money, yet you would never guess watching the finished product. Williams’ film never feels less than cinematic, where a few isolated moments of slow motion photography lend the film an unreal, haunting atmosphere. The refreshing manner of Bull’s narrative construction is also reflected in the sterling location work. Avoiding British crime film cliches such as smokey snooker halls or geezer filled boozers, Bull is set in a world that is at once both bleak and familiar. Aside from the Funfair that dominates much of the film, Bull’s locations reflect an ordinary, suburban Britain that lends an extra degree of uncomfortable verisimilitude.
While much of the credit for Bull’s success can be attributed to William’s taut script and bold, efficient direction, there is no doubting that Bull would be nothing without its two central performances. Portraying the head of the crime family, David Hayman moves away from anything histrionic or bombastic towards something that feels insidiously, quietly sinister. Almost never raising his voice and with a gaze made of razored steel, he proves to be a deeply unsetting antagonist who, disturbingly hiding in plain site in a hi-vis jacket, feels all to real.
Yet it is Maskell who steals the show. Channeling the same deep, white hot rage he exhibited in Ben Wheatley’s Kill List, Maskell infuses Bull with a burning, barely controlled intensity. When he does let rip, like the moment where he screams into the void while being spun around on a fairground ride, it feels exhilarating to watch, yet the moments that linger the most are those that see Bull being still and controlled, moments where we know that violence is soon going to erupt. Perhaps the most unnerving scene arrives when Bull confronts one of the former gang members as they are taking their children to school. Here, Maskell is simply brilliant, channeling a single minded intensity that recalls DeNiro at his best, where simmering violence and threat boil just beneath the surface. It is testament to Maskell’s skill that, despite the punishment that Bull meters out, he still manages to hold onto our sympathy and empathy.
And perhaps that is the most surprising thing about Bull. For all its darkness and nihilism, the extreme violence and a bleak, unrelenting atmosphere, it is a film that still manages to find chinks of light within the darkness, balancing out its pessimism with a sense of redemption…perhaps even optimism.
The film doesn’t hit the bullseye all the time (sorry). Some of the supporting characters are very thinly sketched and actresses such as Tamzin Outhwaite are given relatively little to do. Bull is also peppered with a few minor plot holes and an opening murder that will most likely remain completely baffling unless you listen to the director’s commentary. The biggest potential gripe is that Bull’s narrative twists and turns may put some people off, but ultimately that shouldn’t detract from what is a bold, fearless and brilliant piece of filmmaking. As devastatingly efficient and brutal as a butcher’s cleaver, it will hopefully ensure that we will now get to see many more films from Paul Andrew Williams. I, for one, can’t wait to see what he does next.
Even if the next one does turn out to be a comedy.
Film:
Bull is being released on Blu Ray as a special Limited Edition by Second Sight. Modern films shot on digital can suffer from poor transfers where colours are washed out and black levels look more like grey sludge. Thankfully, Bull’s transfer is the polar opposite of that. Colours punch and pop, fine detail is fantastic and the black levels looked magnificent on my TV (essential, considering how much of the film takes place in shadowy or dim locations). Combined with a completely stable image and wonderful encode, Second Sight offer a magnificent visual transfer of the film. The 5.1 soundtrack sounded fantastic as well, with no compression issues, and with clear dialogue and SFX.
There are only a few extras on the disc, which means that Bull is slightly less brimming with additional content compared to Second Sight’s usual releases. The highlight is undoubtedly the commentary from Paul Andrew Williams and Neil Maskell. Recorded over Zoom (I’m guessing) the sound quality dips very occasionally but that doesn’t detract from a fascinating look behind the scenes, as Williams reveals just how difficult it was to shoot the film at the height of COVID with a small budget and and even smaller schedule. An unnamed third person occasionally chips in with questions but overall this is a great, down to earth two hander between Williams and Maskell.
The remainder of the disc is taken up with three interviews. We have a half hour chat with Williams, who goes into slightly more detail about the pre-production of the film, as well as discussing the casting, his writing process and the film’s influences. The other two interviews are with two of the film’s producers. Dominic Tighe provides a half an hour chat about the film (which might be of particular interest to any budding producers out there wanting to find out some more detail about how film’s are financed and made) while Leonora Darby provides her thoughts in a shorter, ten minute interview. All three are definitely worth a watch. Being a Second Sight limited edition, the film will come in a rigid slipcase, with postcards and a book of critical essays (which I didn’t receive for this review).
Disc/Extras:
Powerful, terrifying and ferocious, there is no doubt that Bull was one 2021’s best films, made by one of Britain’s most underrated filmmakers. In that regard, Second Sight’s deluxe limited edition of Bull, a film that already feels like a future cult classic, is a brutally essential purchase.