The Quiet One

Highly watchable film about a man coming back to his old patch to take over a problem infested pub. He then comes up against local gangster with a hooligan son attempting to gain control of the Pub. The Quiet One attempts successfully to restore law and order in the Pub, making it as intended the focal point of the local community. Considering it was made on a very small budget 6K it is a decent British effort featuring the versatile actor/writer/producer George McCluskey a Coventry local man who has made many contributions to the British Film Industry, also winning several film awards for this one.

With a £6k budget, this John Wick of Birmingham is surprisingly good.

The actors are never going to be red carpet darlings of Hollywood, but they give good performances that are believable.

The script is simple, but effective.

The story, alas is where it's weakest. I'm a product of these rough inner city envrionments where the local guys are known and the pubs are cliquey, New faces stand out, Old faces return, but the legends have ebbed with age and usually they have paid for their indiscretions with their youth.

That being said, with this script, Lenny, the Quiet One is remarkably engaging, the local bar maid is just like every bar girl we know, the local nutter is, the local nutter and the crime family is how you'd imagine them to be.

I mentioned earlier John Wick of Birmingham.... That's close to what this is, not with the pizazz or style, but a close up gritty, no frills, look at how the strong prey on the weak, how fragile life is without Kevlar 3 peice suits from Saville Row, and how fists, knives and intent are the backbone of this story.

I have to mention the Camerawork and the Sound. The former is quite good, the latter, alas, lets the film down.

Overall, I'd recommend this as a little film for. Saturday afternoon if the kids aren't around. You won't want a second watch, but it's better than some of the big budget tripe we are served for entertainment these days.

In terms of bang for the the buck, it's £6k budget, this is an astounding price of work, well acted and engaging. Really hope the cast and crew go onto better things and I'm going to keep an eye out for their future releases.

I stumbled across this film on amazon prime and thought lets give it a go.

Now, it certainly didn't look like any kind of blockbuster and clearly had been made with a minimal budget, however the overall feel of the movie and the way the storyline evolves I cannot help but think how much of a bigger success this film would have been with more cofters.

But credit where credit is due, its a cool story and worthy of a watch.

I say well done to all involved in making something you should be proud of.

I personally would like to see a sequel, a what happens next with Lenny. And I hope that investors see their way to giving you more budget, not too much though as I wouldn't want you to lose your way. The rawness of the film is very important to keep.

I watched this after having the pleasure of meeting the director at Birmingham Film Festival last night. I was pretty cautious going in, given how so many no-budget films are quite dull. This is thankfully not the case here. The film is a slow burn, but it doesn't feel like it has much filler, which is the main gripe I have with similar films. The performances all range from decent to pretty good. Director Jon Pegg clearly has an eye for good actors, as the casting is all really good. The one role I would say I didn't feel like it worked was the lead. The actor is clearly good, but he doesn't quite have the presence of someonr like Clint Eastwood or Toshiro Mifune that the film was clearly trying to emulate. Not a bad performance by any means, just miscast.

Very solid all around. Obviously not perfect, but a good way to spend 90 minutes.

I've always wondered what the worst film I'd seen would be. It's The Quiet One! Ridiculous screenplay and script - just not thought through. Acting?! Well some professional and experienced actors would certainly have helped. Inept direction, obvious from the poor attempt to make things work in the edit. There was no sound dub so the audio is all over the place. In fact in some scenes it's difficult to hear what folk are saying. No grading obviously and the aperture and colour balance are well below the industry's standards. I note no tripods were used and though the hand-held is passable a proper DoP should have been employed. Why it's on Prime amazes me. Worth seeing if one must to experience the lowest of standards.