Empire State reviews
Review by on 25 Sep 2010
It's every man for himself at Empire State, no rules, and no holds barred. Ron Peck's 1987 East End survival yarn turns the camera on the Thatcherite maxim that "there is no such thing as society," dragged and tormented to its logical conclusion.
What begins as a quaint and faintly schlocky period piece, by its final scene, has developed into a bloody collision of lust and desperation's incessant, visceral urge to feed off one another until both are fleshless bones.
The plot revolves around gaudy docklands nightspot, Empire State, where lowlife expect to make their fortunes, perverts to find their thrills, and junkies to get their fixes. Even slipper-tongued Oxbridge types expect to have their investment in London's most rapidly value-accruing hovel.
The result is no less horrifying for being as grimly inevitable as a high school shooting.
Hopeful rent boys get stuck servicing fat men in their cars, the junkies spike their veins until they're tranquilised out of consciousness, and the get-rich-quicks are made destitute. Even the sweet, the earnest, and the humble are peppered by the hailstorm of crossfire. The meek don't stand a chance of inheriting this Earth.
A few stilted performances among a relatively unknown cast are easily absorbed by the characters' incessant need to play dual roles: dog-fighting East End scrappers and suave members of the chosen. And Peck's intricate interweaving of their storylines and fine-lined character drawing mean that any over played lines in the early scenes are quickly forgotten.
The Empire State sucks people in like that.
Dave Thorley
What begins as a quaint and faintly schlocky period piece, by its final scene, has developed into a bloody collision of lust and desperation's incessant, visceral urge to feed off one another until both are fleshless bones.
The plot revolves around gaudy docklands nightspot, Empire State, where lowlife expect to make their fortunes, perverts to find their thrills, and junkies to get their fixes. Even slipper-tongued Oxbridge types expect to have their investment in London's most rapidly value-accruing hovel.
The result is no less horrifying for being as grimly inevitable as a high school shooting.
Hopeful rent boys get stuck servicing fat men in their cars, the junkies spike their veins until they're tranquilised out of consciousness, and the get-rich-quicks are made destitute. Even the sweet, the earnest, and the humble are peppered by the hailstorm of crossfire. The meek don't stand a chance of inheriting this Earth.
A few stilted performances among a relatively unknown cast are easily absorbed by the characters' incessant need to play dual roles: dog-fighting East End scrappers and suave members of the chosen. And Peck's intricate interweaving of their storylines and fine-lined character drawing mean that any over played lines in the early scenes are quickly forgotten.
The Empire State sucks people in like that.
Dave Thorley
Film details
Empire State
MAIN FEATURES
Director: Ron Peck
Actor: Martin Landau
Actor: Ray McAnally
Actor: Jamie Foreman
Actor: Glenn Murphy
Actor: Martin Landau
Actor: Ray McAnally
Actor: Jamie Foreman
Actor: Glenn Murphy
United Kingdom, 1987.
104 mins.
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