If nothing else, this shaggy-dog crime comedy-musical wins points for originality. It’s almost certainly the first British crime film to swap oi-shut-it geezerish banter for songs. Though to be fair, the characters here don’t break into showtunes but baleful ballads of existential rawness written by actor-musician Johnny Flynn. He also co-stars as Mike, one of two amateurish criminals on their way (20 grand in the car boot) to pull off a deal with bigtime crooks – the “score” of the title. Flynn’s Mike is the boss; Will Poulter plays his mildly gormless lunk of a sidekick, Troy.
At a roadside caff in the middle of nowhere, the pair bicker as they wait for their gangland connection to show up. And they wait. Troy falls head over heels with spiky drop dead gorgeous waiter Gloria (Naomi Ackie). This causes him to doubt his image of manhood: the violence, swagger and machismo he’s been around his whole life. As a character he doesn’t make a whole lot of a sense: a bit of a thicko who nevertheless ponders the many meanings of the word “score” and can hold his own in Shakespearean English. Still, Poulter is a brilliant comic actor and supremely likable. On the basis of his work here, producers of Fargo should snap him up instantly for the next season.
