james_whitt70 After the cool zombie shocker Before Dawn, winning team Dominic Brunt and Joanne Mitchell turned their attention to the very real subject of money lending.Jonathan Slinger is Jeremy, a money lender with no morals and a miserable home life who preys on the vulnerable and needy with promises of offering dreams thanks to his ability to lend them money when banks can't. Trouble is his interest rates are sky-high and if you can't pay his friend, Si "pays" them a visit. When two women, Dawn (Joanne Mitchell) and Bex (Victoria Smurfit) use his services a violent stand-off begins.Truly frightening and superbly written, this is a morality tale for the 21st century. The film is gritty to say the least with superb performances from the main cast who tackle the grim premise with a reality that's heart-breaking.Brunt directs with huge confidence, allowing time for the violence to grow slowly until it becomes almost unbearable.A film that needs to be seen as it uncovers a harmful truth that is happening all across our country.

Nigel P This is a hidden gem of a production directed by Dominic Brunt, who in his 'day job' plays Paddy in missable UK soap opera 'Emmerdale'. He has directed a number of horror films, and this one concerns two brassy market stall girls and what happens when they are blackmailed.To begin with, this runs as a convincingly comedic venture with Bex (Victoria Smurfit) and Dawn (Joanne Mitchell) trying to keep their market stall afloat whilst fending off coarse but pretty hilarious amorous advances of low life customers (including eccentric oddball comedian Charlie Chuck as Nev). They also need to escape the extortion racket carried out by local villain Si (Adam Fogerty). Jeremy (Jonathan Slinger), a smiling charmer enters their lives and appears to have the answer to their problems.Events twist and the reveals are rarely less than disastrous for the two leads. It seems extreme measures are needed.The comedy just manages to stay the right side of reality – Bex and Dawn are necessarily sharp-talkers, living in an area crawling with men who simply want them for one thing. They have become 'master of the put-down', and they are extremely witty. When events become darker, and their families (including Dawn's autistic son and eccentric mother played by Rula Lenska) are threatened, it is impossible not to wish Si and his blackmail racket a bloody, gory destruction. Whether or not that happens, is not for me to say – but there's an animated sequence following the end credits that is not to be missed.Great fun.

info-31034 Bait is a really cool film about debt collection in a small Yorkshire town, made by a guy who is in the U.K. soap Emmerdale apparently.What is very clever about the film is the use of women as the victim/aggressors yes there are lots of films like this, but it's all about the way it's done. It's supremely clever, with some really good sub plots, horrific special effects (in a good way) and some absolutely blinding performances from the two leading ladies, one of whom is very courageous as she spends much of the film in her underwear. I can't explain too much, but this film really is very well put together. It's not perfect, but what is? In the meantime is some very clever story telling, blinding direction and gripping action.

mike-77134 The first 5 minutes starts off okay, a little slow but good production value, decent dialog. It all goes down hill from there. 35 minutes into it and nothing's happening.Eventually, the violence starts, but it's so unrealistic and over the top, it's not believable, even within the context of the story.The violence is really fake too, with everyone getting beat to bloody hell, then walking around sporting a couple band-aids, like they are super-human. Sometimes, even the physics stand out as obviously wrong.This movie is frankly stupid. As it drags on, even the dialog and filming goes downhill, as if the crew realized just what a bad a movie they were making and gave up on it.Normally, I try to finish bad movies so I can leave a complete review, but with this one after an hour I had to fast-forward through most of it.The only reason I gave it two stars in the actors seemed to be trying with what little they were given.