There’s a believably devious turn from Hugh Bonneville at the centre of new hit-and-miss Netflix thriller I Came By, a film that sadly has very little else believable in it. He plays well-heeled former judge Hector Blake, who finds himself locked in a class-based battle of wills when socially conscious graffiti artist Toby (George MacKay) uncovers something nasty in his basement. Toby and friend Jay (Percelle Ascott) have gained notoriety in London for breaking into the homes of the rich and leaving the tag “I Came By”, but when Toby delves further into Hector’s home, he discovers something he’s unable to ignore. He calls the police but Hector’s connections and wealth make him an impossible target, leading the two into war.
We’re in adjacent territory to other home-invaders-find-something-nasty thrillers such as The Collector, Don’t Breathe and most closely, Wes Craven’s The People Under the Stairs. But to the British-Iranian writer-director Babak Anvari’s credit, along with co-writer Namsi Khan, the film doesn’t play out exactly as we might expect given its forebears. The details are never particularly surprising, and it feels like a wallop of a twist short in the last act, but the structure and shifting protagonist upend expectations (even if the final shift borders on too many).
