THE SCORE
★★★
OUT 9 SEPTEMBER / CERT 15 / 100 MINS
DIRECTOR Malachi Smyth
CAST Will Poulter, Naomi Ackie, Johnny Flynn
Here is a curious concept: a jukebox musical of previously released Johnny Flynn songs, also starring Johnny Flynn. And while it will take your brain a bit of calibrating to reconcile this film’s two sides — astagey presentation of folk songs, melded with a gritty West Country crime-thriller — it just about works. The musician-turned-actor plays a self-confessed “nobody”, plotting a big deal with big criminals; Will Poulter is the “nobody’s gopher”. An unlikely romance with Naomi Ackie’s Gloria emerges in a roadside caff, where the entire film is set, leaving things feeling dramatically inert. But like the best musicals, Flynn’s arresting songs elevate everything: speaking intangibles that the characters can’t express in words.