SECOND SCREEN
City Of Tiny Lights (15A) HHHH is like a Raymond Chandler story that’s been parachuted into modern-day west London. It’s got troubled dames, bourbonswilling private detectives and a moody, scene-setting voiceover: ‘I deal in secrets – I dig them up or I bury them: forever.’
But this is no Philip Marlowe: this is Tommy Akhtar (Riz Ahmed, pictured), whose ailing father may have arrived in England when Idi Amin kicked the Asians out of Uganda but who himself was born in London and is now totally at home – to the point of being almost invisible – in the multicultural metropolis. But even he is surprised when he finds a worried prostitute waiting in his shabby office. ‘How did you find me?’ ‘I got an app,’ replies Melody (very nicely played by Cush Jumbo) with a street-wise shrug.
Now there’s a line that Chandler never wrote, even if he would have warmed to what ensues: missing sex workers, rekindled old flames (Billie Piper) and dark, dangerous intrigues that see Tommy’s past casting a long shadow over the present.
In fact it’s all based on a Patrick Neate novel, which he’s adapted himself and which has been stylishly directed for the screen by Pete Travis. There are definite echoes of British noir classics such as
Mona Lisa but, helped by Ahmed’s fine performance, this has a refreshing and authentic feel, let down only by a slightly disappointing last 10 minutes.
Remember Storks from last year? Well, someone clearly does, only in The
Boss Baby (G) HHH it’s not long-leggedbirds that deliver human babies, it’s