Duncan Jones, “Whistle” (2002)
“Moon” director Duncan Jones’ first feature is a 29-minute short that initially looks bland and banal, and moves slowly in its first half, but which packs a punch in its last couple of minutes. The plot turns on the stereotype of the hitman with a conscience who tries to help the family or friend of his last victim. (The classic example of a film based on this stereotype is John Woo’s “The Killer”.) In Jones’ version, Brian (Dominic Mafham) has just moved his family to a bucolic neighbourhood in Switzerland, and though he and young son Michael (Charlie Hicks) enjoy the scenery and the fresh bracing mountain air, his wife (Sarah Winman) isn’t all that impressed with the weather and the dairy cows with their tinkly bells, and lets everyone within earshot know. The film spends a considerable amount of time detailing Brian and Michael’s close relationship, whether cycling together into town or agreeing to go up to a mountain glacier with a group of other people. Father and son’s relationship contrasts very strongly to their rather more distant relationships with the significant woman in their lives. (Since Jones wrote the script, one wonders if the family dysfunctionality might be based on his own experiences with his parents.)
But Brian also has to work and from time to time he receives orders from his employer’s agent to take out undesirable people with the drone machine mounted on the balcony of his new home. Each time he receives an assignment, Brian seems to have a premonition of how well or badly the job will go, and becomes very tetchy, even depressed, so the agent also has to phone the missus to make sure Brian does as he is told to do. One day he is lining his sights on a man known as Estrada in London, and lets fly a drone with his finger on the remote … but as the missile flies unerringly towards the target, Estrada reaches out to his own young son, and Brian cannot undo what he has just unleashed …
Guilt-stricken after the successful strike, Brian evades his wife to travel to London to meet the victim’s wife but after the cabbie has picked him up from Heathrow or Gatwick and taken him to the area where the Estradas live, Brian is in for an even more unpleasant shock when he meets a stranger …
The clear pictures of beautiful postcard scenery in Switzerland where the family lives turn are a clever device to lull us into a false sense of security about Brian, his wife and their child, that disguises the sordid reality of the work that sustains them all and enables them to live comfortably in a way others would envy. The scenes where Brian tracks his victims and releases the missile which then efficiently delivers its payload provide the clinical and sharp technological edge and cold sci-fi thriller aspect. Apart from this, the acting is very much so-so and the characters remain flat and one-dimensional. The wife comes across as something of the villain of the piece, a thoroughly amoral bitch as well as Brian’s cold-blooded minder for the employer whose nature remains unknown. The music soundtrack is very good, even outstanding in parts (especially near the beginning).
There is a message about taking responsibility for your actions and the consequences they cause, which underlies the devastating impact of the climax when Brian attempts to contact Mrs Estrada and comes face to face with the person he least expected to see. At this point the film ends on a cliffhanger note and we are not sure if Brian will come away from this encounter well … or even if he comes away from it at all. His family is potentially in danger as a result of his rash actions. I’d have liked the film to have lasted a bit longer and not to have cut out so abruptly but that might have diminished the shock of the realisation of who Brian’s victim really was.
Apart from the underlying message which adds gravitas to an otherwise undistinguished film, “Whistle” is a modest little first effort made on a tight budget that might not suit most audiences but is worth checking out by fans of Duncan Jones’ work.