Scenes of the Crime

The excellent debut feature of expat French director Forma is a thriller self-consciously in the vein of Peckinpah, Scorsese and Jean-Pierre Melville. It opens with the kidnapping of a high-powered Mafia type, Jimmy (Bridges), who ends up stranded in the back of a van on a street corner with a gun at his head. What happens next? That's all down to negotiation between the various self-interested parties. They're professionals, used to making momentous decisions in the flicker of an eye. Emotion plays no part in their decisions. Loyalty only matters as long as it pays. Inadvertently caught in the middle of the cat and mouse negotiations is Lenny (Abrahams), an ingenuous young mechanic who's been making extra money by driving for the Mob. Reportedly based on a true story, this is a claustrophobic but nifty yarn, largely set in a single location. Forma's influences are easy to spot - the nods in the direction of Bullitt and Steve McQueen become a little grating - but this is still riveting entertainment.