TWO prostitutes, one of them a preteen, are on the run. What happened to them is the mystery behind “London to Brighton,” a chilling pulp movie told with a pavement-eye view of the dregs of humanity.
The film is a calling card for its sure-handed rookie director, Paul Andrew Williams, who expertly turns up the suspense knob while establishing a thick sense of doom amid grimy settings.
But its slowly appearing Tarantino-esque “reveal,” which comes out in a series of flashbacks, is by now a familiar tactic. Telling a story in a nonlinear way has chiefly become a method to disguise how routine the same story would seem if it were told in chronological order. Moreover, a sudden attack of political correctness in the ending is preposterous.
The cast of unknowns is strong, especially Johnny Harris as a pimp who has 24 hours to find the women. He locates some trembling humanity in his skeevy character, a tough guy who might not be as tough as he thinks he is.
Running time: 83 minutes. Not rated (sex, nudity, graphic violence, profanity, drug use, underage smoking). At the Cinema Village.