FELONY
Selected release 105 minutes
Matthew Saville's Felony, written by its star, Joel Edgerton, begins with a flurry of action; a kinetic and bruising encounter: it's a scene involving a police raid, in which Malcolm (Edgerton) is wounded by a man he's pursuing. Thereafter, however, the energy in this film – and its movement and its dynamic – takes a very different form. Much of the drama is inward-looking, but it's no less gripping for that.
Malcolm's injuries are not severe, and he and his colleagues let off steam. They know how to look out for each other: there's a password that they can use to protect themselves from the intrusion of a random breath test.
Secure in this knowledge, Malcolm gets behind the wheel. When an accident happens during his drive home in the dark, and a child on a bike is severely injured and left unconscious; Malcolm's first impulse is to seek help, but also to deflect responsibility, to claim that he had no role in it.
From this decision, everything flows, although it's possible to argue that another character, Carl (Tom Wilkinson), has a crucial role to play in its implementation. Carl is a senior police officer who takes a proprietorial interest in Malcolm. He comes onto the scene by chance. He s in the midst of an investigation that is consuming him, and he is also mentoring a quiet, watchful young man, Jim (Jai Courtney), who is quick to notice inconsistencies in Malcolm's statements, and in the way he's treated.
These three men define the terms of the film. Wilkinson's character is the most extrovert, the most volatile; and he's the only person really articulating what's on his mind. Malcolm is caught up in repression, in stewing over things; Jim is naturally taciturn – Carl acts as a loose cannon, a kind of manipulative, rationalising impulse.
Felony works carefully with position and point of view, with what its characters withhold or express without words. It is is rife with close-ups, but it also shows us incidents from a distance, in ways that emphasise the difficulty of seeing things clearly.
At the beginning, other police work seems to have a part to play in the story: Carl's investigation into the fate of a missing child, and his conviction that he can flush out a a paedophile suspect; Malcolm's continuing drug investigation. But these elements – particularly Carl's case – fall away a little too suddenly, almost as if they've been dropped.
There are patterns and repetitions in Felony, used with varying degrees of success; a couple of contrivances too many towards the end. Its conclusion, however, carries with it the ambiguity that is the film's greatest strength.
