Mr. In-Between Reviews

Underworld characters ponder the philosophical implications of killing for a living in this unsettling gangster drama. Jon Bennet (Andrew Howard) is pet enforcer to the "Tattooed Man" (David Calder), and has no qualms about breaking debtors' bones or executing traitors. But Jon Makes a mistake with far-reaching consequences: He asks his psychotic boss for a favor. The Tatooed Man does deign to find job for Jon’s unemployed pal, Andy (Andrew Tiernan), at a garage run by Mr. Rickets (Clint Dyer). But he sees Jon’s act of altruism as a sign of weakness; if Jon were truly in sync with his sadistic father figure, he'd have no friends but the boss. Of course, Jon’s altruism is in part motivated by his infatuation with Andy’s wife, Cathy (Geraldine O’Rawe), and when Jon spots a bank robbery in progress and realizes Cathy is one of the terrified hostages, he immediately steps in and dispatches the thieves. Unhappy about Jon’s latest detour into decency, the Tattooed Man decides to test Jon’s devotion and orders Rickets to kill Andy. But rather than returning to the fold, Jon avenges Andy’s murder in kind and does some hard thinking about where his loyalties lie. Jon decides to come clean to the police about having killed Rickets, but to his surprise, the cops find neither a body nor any evidence of foul play because Jon's gangland cronies have cleaned up the crime scene. The cops dismiss Jon as a crank: He literally can't even get arrested. Then an associate warns that the kinky Tattooed Man is planning to kidnap Cathy and her daughter and Jon must decide between loyal to the boss and following the dictates of his increasingly insistent conscience. Even if the how-to-reform-a-hit-man psychobabble makes you cringe, screenwriter Peter Waddington’s repellent take on criminal behavior is mesmerizing. Director Paul Sarossy’s nuanced direction helps the keep its footing in a sadistic wonderland where moral values are topsy-turvy and no good deed goes unpunished.