The Veteran DVD
Starring: Toby Kebbell, Brian Cox, Tony Curran
Director: Matthew Hope
Rating: 3.5/5
Toby Kebbell is one of the most exciting British actors as he seems to move effortlessly from the sprawling big budget blockbuster to the smaller and more gritty roles.
And The Veteran is his most intense and compelling performance to date as he leads an all star cast.
The Veteran tells the powerful story of retired soldier Robert Miller (Kebbell), returning home from Afghanistan.
Living on a violent council estate and finding work in undercover surveillance, he becomes obsessed with taking down a group of local gangsters who are intrinsically tied to a suspected terrorist cell.
Taking the situation into his own hands, Miller embarks on a brutal quest for justice, with devastating consequences.
Kebbell carries the entire movie and gives a great performance as a soldier who is struggling to settle back into civilian life.
He is haunted by his military days, yet that side of his character is never fully explored; which would have brought another very interesting layer to the movie.
But what is so interesting about his character is he seems just so close to madness there is an air of menace around him that you feel could snap at any moment as he battle for justice.
Hope has delivered a very gritty war movie with the character find themselves on a very different battleground; surviving in the jungle that is London.
I suppose you could argue that the movie lacks a bit of polish but that only adds to the gritty and realness to the story.
Hope brought in paratrooper Robert Henry Craft to help pen the script as well as work with Kebbell - and there very much is a feel of authenticity through the movie.
There are moments when the story does lose a bit of pace but Hope more than makes up for that at the end as Miller goes on a bit of a rampage.
With soldiers returning home from combat all the time The Veteran is a very relevant movie and does raise some questions; is enough being done to help Iraq & Afghanistan veterans return to civilian live? What more needs to be done to help and support?
The Veteran is out on DVD & Blu-Ray now
Read my interview with scriptwriter Robert Henry Craft.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw