New Town Killers review

Handsome and genteel one minute, haunted and gloomy the next, Edinburgh is an ideal filming location, as much a movie set as a city. But writer/director Richard Jobson’s latest hometown love letter has no time for casual tourism.

This breathless indie hits the streets of Auld Reekie running and never lets up. In a plot familiar from 1932’s The Most Dangerous Game, skid-row scamp James Anthony Pearson agrees to be hunted by businessman Dougray Scott – for money – although the stakes are soon raised when Scott starts spitting out vicious class rants and stomping heads.

Scott’s methods don’t bear much scrutiny, but then they don’t get much – the film’s forever snapping at Pearson’s heels as he legs it for his life.

Racing from lawless tenement to loveless townhouse, it’s grittier and gutsier than the cut-price Running Man clone it threatens to become, a spiky little speedball of caustic social commentary and guerrilla thrills.