Calibre – ****

Calibre (Matt Palmer, 2018)

Global Acquisition – Thriller

 

Calibre is a gripping, dark thriller that features several stomach-churning scenes even while it shows little violence on screen. Indeed the film is such a good thriller that I would even deign to use that adjective that I hate so much and call it Hitchcockian. The plot revolves around two “blokes” (played by Jack Lowden and Martin McCann) who go off on a hunting trip in a small Scottish town, right after one learns that he is going to be a father. Things go awry during the hunting trip, beginning with a horrible accident that the two then unsuccessfully try to cover up. As their attempts unravel, their worlds end up falling apart in spectacular fashion. As you can see from this synopsis, I think you should watch the film without knowing all the specific details, but suffice it to say that it is a pretty memorable film.

Such is the feeling of impending doom in some scenes that the film can feel unbearable, but these are handled expertly to avoid wallowing in melodramatic dread. That is besides a climactic scene that is drawn out and excessive, traits I typically wouldn’t mind if they didn’t occur in what was up to this point a very efficient and lean thriller. This scene aside, writer/director Matt Palmer expertly crafts the narrative to manipulate the audience’s sympathies. The accident, and more importantly the ways in which the friends handle its aftermath, puts you in their shoes and even gets you to imagine that you might do the same thing yourself, even if this is something supremely stupid on the part of the characters. As often happens in Hitchcock or great film noirs, we feel ourselves thus sympathizing with people who really only have themselves to blame for their problems. This makes some scenes feel like actual gut punches as the walls close in on the two men.

This is perhaps a good point to insist that this film is a thriller and not a horror film, as my description may imply. This has been the way Netflix has largely presented the film in its catalog, but if that’s what you’re looking for you’ll be (slightly) disappointed. There is nothing supernatural here, just flawed protagonists trying desperately to get out of town before the locals find out what they’ve done.

That said, the film does use many of the stylistic conventions of the horror film to build tension. The small Scottish town, true to the conventions of horror cinema is claustrophobic and full of dangers that lurk beneath the surface. Sound, scoring and landscape (the empty forest) are also used in ways that recall many a horror film.

Besides the film’s aesthetic dimensions, it also works as an interesting commentary on class (what British film doesn’t?) and regional difference. Our tourists are London boys working in finance (though one is currently based in Glagow, an interesting commentary on Scottish regionalism) and their presence in the depressed industrial town reduced to pandering for tourist revenue creates tension on a number of levels.

If Netflix didn’t exist, Calibre would have been a sadly familiar story in British/Scottish film history. After producers Alastair Clark and Anna Griffin struggled for seven years to piece together the funding and get the film made, it did well on festival circuit, copping a prize at Edinburgh for Best British Feature and got some good critical word of mouth. The next step would usually have been for the film to play in only a few cinemas in Britain before disappearing forever. It would likely never have been seen on any significant scale outside of the country as it lacks known stars or a famous director. But Netflix’s purchase of the film gives it the chance to be seen much more widely than Peter Mullan or Lynne Ramsay’s Scottish films, to cite just two sets of examples of unknown Scottish cinema. The streaming service, however, has yet to do much marketing for the film – if any – beyond the algorithm, making this a film that remains unfairly obscure even while ostensibly having it better than its predecessors.

 

Netflix Tendencies

Limited Locations

Most of the action takes place in the forest, leading me to group it along with Legacy of the… and The Ritual as films that use forests to avoid having to make and dress too many sets. Coincidentally, these three films came out within weeks of one another.

Netflix Stars

A bit of a stretch maybe, but you never know what feeds the algorithm. Tony Curran, who plays de facto mayor Logan in this film, also plays the villain in Crazyhead, a series Netflix co-produced with E4 and which I don’t recommend you see.

Public Money

This film seems to have benefitted from a great deal of public money over the years it spent in development but I could only find hard data on Creative Scotland’s contribution which was £146,000.

Notable Corporate Alliances

This film was sold to Netflix by Beta Film. The German sales agent has strong ties to Netflix, having sold them Babylon Berlin for some territories as well as managing the sales of a number of other films and series to the service including Spanish series such as Tiempos de la Guerra and Cocaine Coast.