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91Down Terrace is so intimate and hilariously offhanded (a hit man shows up for a job pushing his 3-year-old in a stroller) that it is all the more shocking when murderous violence finally erupts about halfway through.
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91A dark and hilarious thwomping of the whole miserablist British gangster genre.
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80This muted mobster story reminds us that the ties that bind can also gag you, garrote you and slowly deaden your soul.
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80Down Terrace is long on talk but generates its own internal rhythms and pace that makes it feel bracing and vibrantly alive.
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75It's hard to decide what's worse about this feral clan residing in Brighton, England: their unspecified criminal enterprises, their penchant for bloody vengeance or their twisted family dynamic.
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75It's full of funny stuff, from a hitman forced to drag along his 3-year-old when he can't get a sitter, to one of the goons being asked, "Do you have a Web presence?"
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75When Down Terrace gets in a good groove, Wheatley and Hill's dialogue is both funny and pointed.
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70When it's all over and you don't have to spend any more time smoking pot with Karl and Bill in their horrid little house, you may feel the elation of tragic catharsis. Then again, you may feel as if you just drank a bottle of drain opener; the difference between those states is subtle.
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70The production comes by its authenticity naturally -- and not only because several of the cast members (fascinating faces all) happen to be related.
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70Down Terrace has frequently been appreciated as "The Sopranos meets Mike Leigh." But a more fruitful comparison might be to last year's stand-out British satire "In the Loop": In both films, verbal aggression makes for the biggest laughs and the surest signs of moral decay.
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70Cleverly channeling gangster tropes through a British kitchen-sink soap opera, TV scribe-helmer Ben Wheatley has concocted a nifty black comedy, with a little help from his friends, in Down Terrace.
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60The father and son chemistry give this blackly-comic slice of social realism a dose of Ealing-lite wit.
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50However persuasively acted, this mélange of cinéma vérité, slapstick and murder - whose story has a lot in common with the recent Australian gangster film "Animal Kingdom" - has too many narrative gaps for its pieces to cohere satisfactorily.
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40Strong performances and understated cinematography help balance the self-conscious editing, but ultimately the entire affair feels false.