Catch Me Daddy

The plot is fairly simple; Leila is on the run from her family, she is hiding in Yorkshire with her boyfriend Aaron. Her brother then rocks up into town with his crew of ne'er do wells and some hired hands who are also less than appealing.

They are going to leave no stone unturned in their search for the seemingly errant Leila and as ever violence begets violence and so begins a deadly chase.

Now this is a really good film; it has enough tension to make you wear the edge of your seat out. The characters are brutally realised and the acting is superb. It is visceral, taught and realistic. Made with help from Film 4 and Screen Yorkshire this is a film that has used that support wisely and given a platform to showcase some real talent. Sameena Jabeen Ahmed puts in a show stopping performance as Leila, the sometimes under rated Gary Lewis ('Outlander' and 'Filth') as Tony manages to shine – for all the right reasons - in a role that at first seemed peripheral.

This will be a film that will not be liked by some and the way things pan out is surprising, but that is fine by me I like to be challenged by a plot. Director Daniel Wolfe, who co-wrote this, has made a feature length film that he should be proud of and hopefully will lead to us seeing more from him in the very near future.

I had no idea what I was about to watch. Never heard or the film and bought in charity shop for a pound on blu ray.

At first it felt painfully slow. Then the tension began to mount.

Fine performances for all involved.(Except the milkshake boy!? Terrible) Gritty, realistic and gripping.

So why did they end it so disappointingly??

It wasn't original or edgy to keep the viewer dangling like that. It was just lazy and left you feeling cheated.

Lost lot of points for that.

I guess the director thought he was being cool.

Fail.

One word is all that I can say about this movie "Raw'. It's a movie designed not to please or entertain but just a gritty story line of a chase that unfolds into a torrential end. As you watch the movie, you start looking for clues to it's purpose and then you settle into your chair and let the movie carry you. The characters are presented in a very raw form, no refinement but unadulterated compilation of characters with dialogue that bring the film to life. You don't guess, you watch and you witness people's demons and the measures they take to bring sanity and balance to their lives. A truly well executed movie that is worth watching.

very powerful, and pretty impressive as a hybrid of British art- house and thriller conventions, even if these two strands of its makeup never sit entirely comfortably against each other. there's little that hasn't been seen in the films of other European socio-realist directors (i kept thinking of Ulrich seidl, Clio Bernard and Brno Dumont as well as tiny bit of ken loach, though this has little of loach's generosity or compassion) but the Wolfe's obviously know a thing or two about gut-piercing drama, they just stick too conveniently to the surface of the subject they are focusing on. it feels a little too easy to take such a sensitive subject and treat it merely as thriller fodder. yes it has some sensitive scenes, and the last scene is almost unbearable to watch (i left feeling scarred) but it is also just reveling in ethnic stereotypes in how there is not one redeemable Asian man on screen. so while you could say there are no redeeming men of any background on screen (or that it is not the job of every film to deal with this, but i would say for a film tackling this subject, and a group who are routinely represented poorly in the mainstream, it is an important detail, esp when there have been very few films dealing with these themes - catch me daddy seems close to becoming exploitation, albeit dressed up in art-house clothing), the older white bounty hunter at least appears to care somewhat, as does the white boyfriend. does it drive home the absolute horror of the situation as it should? yes. but it also relishes that horror a little too uneasily/problematically. it is essentially just reinforcing the audience's preconceived notions of Pakistani/south Asian communities, with Asian men as brutes, white men as saviours, Asian girls as victims, with little to challenge or colour around that - so while the film might appear superficially bold, its also somewhat thin on understanding its subject beyond very basic circumstances. but i imagine the Wolfe's would make good British genre movie makers, which the UK could probably do with more of. they're great filmmakers, I'm just not sure if they are particularly mature as storytellers.

Catch Me Daddy was a near-miss for me. A cat-and-mouse thriller about a white British bloke and his young Muslim girlfriend on the run from her possessive father in Yorkshire, it dips its toe into matters of feminism in Islam and the taboo of interracial relationships, but mainly concerns itself with one close shave after another for our increasingly desperate fugitive pair... along with shocking scenes of violence which are all the more affecting because they occur so sparingly.

Mostly taking place over the course of one brutal night, the story displays many rundown locations around the county and introduces us to a selection of particularly unsavoury characters; a Tourist Board advertisement for the region it is not. MiIdly diverting but definitely overlong, it's another one of those films that concludes with a giant question mark hanging over it. Some people would appreciate the ambiguity, other would prefer something a bit more concrete. I exist firmly in the latter camp. 5/10.