The career of Danny Dyer is one of the most inexplicable phenomena in British film. Average looking and singularly lacking in thespian chops, he has nonetheless managed to carve out a loyal fanbase for a seemingly unending stream of low-budget, DIY Cockernee gangsta flicks. Here he plays Frankie, a hardnut convict who escapes from chokey, carjacks hapless middle-class mum Amber (Anna Walton) and forces her to drive him around the East End at knifepoint.
What follows is mind-numbingly repetitive – they encounter a passer-by, said passer-by clues into Danny’s evil scheme, Danny calls passer-by a slag before knifing them to death – and grindingly tedious: you’ll feel every one of these 90 long minutes. ‘Deviation’ is a small cut above the usual Dyer sludge – it features a decent central turn from Walton, some slick digital photography and a script which isn’t ambitious enough to be truly, completely awful – but awarding it more than one star would still be overgenerous.