A Field in England
Director: Ben Wheatley
Writer: Ben Wheatley, Amy Jump
Cast: Reece Shearsmith, Michael Smiley, Julian Barratt, Richard Glover, Peter Ferdinando, Ryan Pope, Sara Dee
Part of: /slash Filmfestival

Plot:
A group of soldiers, among them alchemist Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith), flee from a battle in the English Civil War into a seemingly empty field where they are captured by O’Neil (Michael Smiley) who is looking for gold and wants to use Whitehead for that. But things are not at all simple in that field.

Ben Wheatley’s movies and I, we don’t have a very loving relationship. But I think that I might have likes A Field in England even less than Kill List. I didn’t think that was possible but this movie was just crappy.

The film starts off with a disappointment already. Julian Barrat gets first credit, he’s right there, I’m all excited about it – and then he dies after three scenes or so. That’s just evil teasing. I wanted more of him! (Though, honestly, I just wanted less of this film. So if more Julian Barrat had meant more of this film, I wouldn’t have wanted it anyway.)

The cast was generally good, though. Michael Smiley was great, as per usual and I really enjoyed Richard Glover, too.

But the film just didn’t make any sense. And I didn’t like it stylistically, either. The black and white looked weird. I was bored throughout the entire time. I barely cared about any of the characters.

I don’t get Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump, like at all. Their brand of mystery is just nonsense that pretends to be more. It doesn’t make me curious, it doesn’t make me want to figure things out, it just makes me want to stop watching.

Summarizing: Shit.