This passable but forgettable drama is a multi-stranded story of various flawed men being sucked into a vortex of violence, crime, and a gritty, lowkey brand of operatic tragedy. A decent cast make a fist of attempted redemption, elevating the material through sheer will, but the dirt and the gun oil under its fingernails can’t disguise the simple cautionary melodrama at its centre.

Ex-con Adam (Luke Evans) is ending three years of probation for manslaughter of a young man. Seeking redemption he tries to make amends with his ex Donna (Stephanie Leonidas) in the hope he can be part of his now grown son Jimmy (Rudy Pankow). Meanwhile Eli (Zac Adams), the brother of the boy Adam killed is planning his revenge. Eli’s friend Mike (Rory Culkin) is way out of his depth in the narcotics business run by his uncle Leff (Alex Pettyfer) and is planning an unsanctioned deal that could buy his way out of New York.

Phil Allocco‘s drama attempts to marry the multiple converging strands of Amores Perros applied to a Mean Streets milieu. In this it succeeds, even if the films it evokes are infinitely richer, more satisfying experiences. The storytelling is serviceable throughout, its pacing nimbly dancing between its plot strands, but its thematic depth equates to little more than a token hand waved towards ideas of generational violence.

Evans and Pettyfer are both imposing father figures of differign stripes. Pettyfer has the easier task, more flatly villainous and glowering. Evans is more mercurial and ambiguous, aided by Allocco’s script refusing to soft soap Adam’s violent past. The film really belongs to Rory Culkin, playing a similar tragi-comic figure to that of Øystein ‘Euronymous’ Aarseth in Lords of Chaos; a likeable loser left floundering in a cycle of escalating violence through various poor decisions. He’s the closest 5ibs of Pressure comes to a beating heart, with the other characters merely cyphers. Well-performed cyphers for sure, but still lacking that real spark.

In fact, the lack of a spark is a fair summation of the entire film. There’s nothing really terrible in 5lbs of Pressure. It’s simply extremely forgettable. We’ve seen multi-stranded narrative knitted together more deftly, with greater depth of character, with a less doom-laden sense of inevitability. There’s nothing here that examines how the characters are who they are; no social insight or political commentary. This leads one to assume that it was always intended to be a character piece, but they seem to exist hermetically. And apart from Culkin’s Mike there is little to draw us to these protagonists.

Available on streaming from Wed 22 May 2024