Seemingly inspired by the Rotherham child rape scandal, Nathan Shepka’s film has both a streak of sentimentality and an appetite for violence
Here is a vigilante thriller co-directed, written by and starring prolific low-budget Scottish film-maker Nathan Shepka, which has a kind of grim integrity despite the uneven acting and numerous rough edges. Seemingly inspired by the Rotherham grooming gang scandal, but transposing the story to Glasgow, Shepka plays laconic nightclub bouncer Alex, who is asked to do a Jack Carter and rescue a teenage girl from sex-trafficking hell.
Not that this takes place in a world where anyone does anything out of innate goodness. The job, and the accompanying 20 grand, are sent his way by a retired lawyer (ex-Doctor Who Sylvester McCoy) who is trying to cover up the fact that the girl’s mother is a heroin addict sleeping with a major politician. But Alex isn’t fundamentally a wrong’un; he visits his deaf father languishing in a care home, and shows worrying outbreaks of tenderness to sex worker Gemma (Grace Cordell) on her regular visits to his caravan.
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