The Last Yellow review

Leicester. The plughole in the middle of England, home to a load of car-boot sales and very few feature films.

Frank has no hope, no job, no style and no girlfriend. His life really starts to unravel, however, when he's chucked out of his home and meets Kenny - The Sundance Kid to his Butch. Kenny's a skinny desperado who hires him as a hitman to avenge the attack which left his brother Keith with brain damage. So the two of them head down to the Big Choke on a United Counties to carry out the murderous deed.

In many ways, The Last Yellow is a love story. Addy and Creed-Miles both give solid, credible performances as the two lost souls, but it's their connection which is the star - and the heartbeat - of the film. As you watch, you find yourself really rooting for their friendship, and it's this partisan reaction, together with debutant screenwriter Paul Tucker's gift for the offbeat, which keeps the flick safely outside that gluey Kitchen Sink-Land where so many British dramas become irretrievably stuck.

In the smaller roles, Kenneth Cranham is deliciously needy as Kenny's snaggle-toothed bully of a dad; and rising star Samantha Morton (Under The Skin, Woody Allen's Sweet And Lowdown), who plays Jackie, the girlfriend of Kenny's intended victim, is terrific. She is that rarest of performers: a comedienne who lets you see her pain. She's always more than just a foil for the boys' bungling desperation.

There are belly laughs a-plenty in the script, but director Julian Farino never loses a handle on the real issue: the fact that these unlikely lads amount to exactly nothing when alone, but prove invincible when together as a pair.

The end result is a deeply-felt first feature which ricochets between the darkly hilarious and enormously moving. Leicester will be proud.