I've seen many comments on this movie(recently seen on IMDb)that range from "best movie ever" to brutal slating, that it's boring, pointless, etc. Well, I find that the film is between both of these extremes. It does a good job of conveying the turmoil of a city under threat of a terrorist attack, that is very realistic, spot on (like Mike Leigh does action, a bit weird but very interesting), I really liked the action sequences which for a low budget movie were quite remarkable in their scale and content. The character tie-ins work very well, and do a good job of keeping things moving. Problem is, that I ended up not caring much about all of them, with the exception of the Saeed Jaffrey, the Spanish girl was a shock but I never felt like I knew or cared about her, Mayall was interesting but his character was only beginning to open up when his performance was suddenly over. Theakston does a good job on the cinematography in his DOP debut but in the final analysis, this could've been better if Brady would've reigned in his overindulgent script, had better dialogue, focused on less characters and fleshed out the remaining ones better, eschewed the Lisa Shaw character (at least the Police Commander that seems stuck to spot) and had an ending that made sense. Themes such as dispossession and terrorism have been handled better by more accomplished directors. So, I give it 6/10 - not terrible, but not a great film that I could recommend, given a sensible budget though I guess it could of been much better, but trying to create a film of this scale on a micro budget was always doomed to failure.
