Absolutely Fantastic

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The first must-see film of the year.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A Faustian lesson in corruption as a way of life. It encourages us to see the things that we encounter in daily life anew.Vaguely reminiscent of Pusher and 'Footsoldier, Hyena follows a rotten bunch of drug-squad officers in a downward spiral: Running out of cash, running out of guardians, running out of options! The film's ending appears to be frustrating initially, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. Hopefully!

Michael Logan is a police detective in London. His area is drugs and this brings him into contact with European drug syndicates. Logan is happy to turn a blind eye to their dealings, for a cut, or confiscate suppliers' merchandise for their own profit. So far he and his equally-crooked police colleagues have done quite well out of this. Then a deal he was planning with a member of a Turkish drug cartel goes sour and the balance of power swings to an Albanian gang, run by two brothers, the Kabashis. Logan quickly aims to provide the Albanians with the same service he provided the Turks, but they aren't easily lead. Meanwhile, he an his colleagues are being investigated by Internal Affairs. Just to make his life more complicated, he has been seconded to a vice task force, run by a former colleague whom he does not get along with.Gritty crime-drama that blurs the lines between good and bad, criminal and cop. Very well done in this respect, as you never know who is on whose side, who's looking out for justice and who's just it for the money. Even figuring out who are allies on the criminal side of things is difficult.All this leads to a wonderfully complex minefield or relationships, loyalties and intentions, and in the middle of it is our main character, Logan.Just a pity about the ending though. The movie was heading for great climax, and maybe even a 9/10, when the director wrecked it with the final scene. Without giving too much away, it was very unsatisfying...

The following review is going to be quite negative; something I don't like doing, but in this case it's born out of frustration as the BFI, Film 4 and Tribecca are all behind 'Hyena' and it just makes me scream aloud WHY?! I'm clearly missing something. I know it's a low budget thriller and the fact any film gets made yet alone released is quite an achievement but seriously, why bother if there's nothing original to say or show when you aren't working under the overly regimented eye of a powerhouse studio? Director Gerard Johnson is also the screenwriter and this really needed a second stronger writer to edit it down and polish up some of the horrible or just too 'on-the-nose' dialogue that results in cliché. For a writer/director in his forties the script is very immature and the (visual) direction seems (probably intentionally) shot from the hip as 99% of it is hand-held close up or MCU work with countless shots following behind Gerard Butler lookalike Peter Ferdinando as he walks. Ferdinando here isn't a strong enough an actor to carry this, however his given dialogue could take a lot of the blame although many of his emotion and reaction shots look like the editor has cut in the bad takes. Mentioning the editing, the film has so much padding and could easily be relieved of a good 10 minutes from its over-long 112 minute running time. How many montage-style scenes were there of characters doing things (drinking and drug taking mostly) set to music that didn't really progress the plot? And what was with the male topless food fight? For a 'tough cop' movie there are a number of homo-erotic moments here that feel out of place. MyAnna Buring was there…. to collect a pay-check? Given NOTHING to do. The ending I won't talk about, although it doesn't work in this scenario. But then again I couldn't have cared less about any of the characters outcomes and the cut to black was in fact quite a relief. Sharing many of Ben Wheatley's regular cast members, director Johnson adapts a similar cinema verite-style as seen in 'Kill List' but overall it just feels like lazy filmmaking. As I say, I think I'm missing something. Or is mediocrity the new "it'll do"?

Detective Sargeant Michael Logan is a corrupt cop and finds himself getting involved in a turf war between Albanians and Turks on the seedy streets of London's underworld And that's really it as far as plot goes but regardless of this I was dying to see HYENA since I'm a massive fan of Johnson . Not Gerard Johnson the director but Matt Johnson the composer here once known and revered as The The who made some of the greatest , innovative and diverse music of the 1980s . This innovation meant he wasn't the most popular or best selling artist in an era dominated by manufactured plastic pop by the hit factory of Stock , Aitken and Waterman and by the early 1990s The The were releasing fewer stuff that was increasingly under promoted and Matt and his collective haven't released any material via mainstream means since Naked Self in 2000 . In other words if you want to hear any new material you'll have to go out of your way . The good old days of popping in to Woolworths to buy a new release are long gone . You can download stuff via ITunes and Amazon but the material would have to be available in the first place !!!!! SUGGESTIVE SPOILERS !!!!! On the surface HYENA isn't all that different from another recent watch FILTH which has the same premise of corrupt cup finding redemption of sorts but that film suffered badly by being sourced from Irvine Welsh and when you've seen one Welsh film adaptation you've probably seen them all . HYENA is different and a rather difficult watch in some parts with rather disturbing parts such as a rape scene which doesn't leave much to the viewer's imagination . Gritty doesn't really do it justice . Gerard Johnson obviously doesn't have a big budget to play with but he does show imagination such as a police raid at the start of the film being directed in an extremely trippy manner . Since it's a character driven story revolving around a corrupt cop it's important that you cast correctly and Peter Ferdinando is very good as Logan and deserves to be better known . He is ably supported by the "usual suspects" of actors you'd expect to see in an independent low budget British movie but that said I've watched a lot of low budget indies where the cast are uniformly dreadful and one wonders why Johnson gets it right here when so many others have been getting it patently wrong ? Nice , moody soundtrack from Matt Johnson too that compliments the visuals and gives some of us hope that his career hasn't come to an abrupt jarring end like the ending of HYENA which is rather frustrating