You don’t expect soft from Maskell and you don’t get it, in Paul Andrew Williams’s queasy criminal underworld
Paul Andrew Williams’s revenge nightmare is a stomach-turningly violent gangland shocker that returns this film-maker to territory he first staked out with his 2006 feature debut, the lowlife thriller London to Brighton. There are brilliant moments here, and Bull is arguably as good as, say, Shane Meadows’s much-admired Dead Man’s Shoes, in a similarly relentless vein. But I have to admit to finding the female characters less interesting than they were in London to Brighton – and opinions might divide about the ending here, which the movie both telegraphs in advance and yet also diverts your attention away from, with a shuffling of the timeline.
Neil Maskell stars as the titular Bull, and for those of us who have enjoyed this actor’s powerfully charismatic and disturbing performances in the past, particularly in Ben Wheatley’s films, the casting should tip you off. You don’t expect anything soft and relaxing from Maskell, and you don’t get it. Bull used to be a London gangland enforcer working for Norm (David Hayman), who, among many unsavoury concerns, runs a dodgy butcher’s business forcing food suppliers to accept his dodgy meat. Norm and the rest of his crew, including Marco (Jason Milligan), Gary (Kevin Harvey) and Beardy (David Nellist), are sometimes to be found in a greasy spoon, wearing hi-vis tabards, indicating some sort of building-trade front.
