The Arbiter had its world première at FrightFest, 10.50pm Thurs 21 Aug
The Arbiter takes place in a future – or perhaps a parallel – London, described in voiceover by Liam Verril (Craig Russell), aka ‘the Arbiter’, as “rotten, violent, divided.” Here “gangs rule the night”, and as long as two basic rules are strictly followed – no guns, and no destruction of property – the police chief Sargent (James Groom) and his men turn a blind eye and leave the feuding criminals to it.
There are five main gangs, who each come with their own distinctive look and style. The Terry’s, led by Terry (Georgina Leonidas), seek legitimacy for their ice cream van business. The Asphalt Banshees, led by Rusty (Jasmine Sumner), are an all-female outfit of skaters whose roller ‘blades’ come with literal, lethal sharpened edges. The Freelance Furies, led by Stuart (Jon Xue Zhang), use what Verill calls “parkour, with a bit of Mixed Martial Arts – and some dancing”. The Pyro Paladins, led by Guy (Alastair Kirton), specialise in fireworks and arson – and, not being the brightest bunch, bear the burn scars of their many pyrotechnic failures. And the mysterious Gizmo Guild Guardians, led by Henry (Michael Geary), avoid violence and practise isolationism, never leaving the otherwise abandoned building which they have occupied and boobytrapped to ensure that nobody else gets in. Meanwhile a sixth gang, the Night Crawlers, has, under its new leader masked up like Lord Humungus, recently been taking down all the other gangs and ruthlessly executing their members.
This is where the Arbiter comes in – a tightly wound man of few words who liaises between the police and the gangs, and tries to maintain a certain balance in the endless turf wars and territorial killing. Verill, who harbours his own deeply personal grudge against the Night Crawlers, is determined to unite the other five gangs against them, and to restore a peace of sorts to the City, so that finally he can retire. Terry, Stuart, Guy and Rusty all agree to meet Verril in Henry’s building The Castle, with rookie police rep William Garry (Ekow Quartey) along as an observer and well out of his league – but disgruntlement, deception and double-crossing are in the air, even as an army of Night Crawlers circles below for the kill. It will take all of Verill’s negotiation skills, chess moves and brute fighting force to survive the night, so that maybe he can get back to being truly terrible at online dating.
The Arbiter is a towering edifice, constructing its multiple storeys with building blocks borrowed from John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Walter Hill’s The Warriors (1979) and Streets of Fire (1984), George Miller’s Mad Max 2 (1981), Paul Donovan and Maura O’Connell’s Self Defense (aka Siege, 1983), Bill Forsyth’s Comfort and Joy (1984), Peter Manoogian’s Enemy Territory (1987), Pierre Morel’s District 13 (2004), Gareth Evans’ The Raid (2011) and James Nunn and Ronnie Thompson’s Tower Block (2012). There are tense sieges, bloody fights, explosive mantraps and lots of people set on fire, making this an unusually ambitious low-budget indie – which is no less than we would expect from writer/director Marc Price, whose features, from shoestring debut Colin (2007) – whose star Kirton returns here – to Nightshooters (2018) to Dune Drifter (2020), always punch above their weight.
Yet as this rogues’ gallery of “insignificunts” confer and clash, the secret weapon of The Arbiter, more powerful than any firecracker, bomb, nail gun or sword (or pen used as a sword), is the knowing, cutting humour of Price’s script, which repeatedly exposes the pettiness and pointlessness of all this vicious power play. “It’s all so fucking stupid,” says the singularly stupidest character of the pack near the film’s end, and while he is dead right, it is this constant seam of deconstructive comedy that ensures this daft siege gangland actioner remains an appealing diamond (geezer) in the rough.
strap: Marc Price’s amped-up action siege thriller endlessly makes fun of itself and its received tropes
© Anton Bitel
