Hye­na

If repeat­ed real-life scan­dals have left the pub­lic mis­trust­ful of the British police con­stab­u­lary, then our TV and film indus­tries have only exac­er­bat­ed mat­ters fur­ther. Depic­tions of the force have ranged from bum­bling plods to mav­er­ick wrong’uns fuelled by booze and plagued by a mael­strom of emo­tion­al issues.

Ger­ard Johnson’s sec­ond fea­ture as writer/​director (after 2009’s mod­er­ate­ly suc­cess­ful ser­i­al killer thriller, Tony) intro­duces us to a gang of cop­pers, bent dou­ble by their own cor­rup­tion. And a gang is exact­ly what they are, with all of the intim­i­dat­ing impli­ca­tions. In more than just its beast­ly title, Hye­na resem­bles David Michôd’s pre­ci­sion-exe­cut­ed Ani­mal King­dom, which cap­tured a crim­i­nal fam­i­ly in vio­lent freefall. This time it’s the police them­selves who are going daahn.

The chameleon-like char­ac­ter actor Peter Fer­di­nan­do (the cousin of John­son, recent­ly seen in Starred Up and A Field in Eng­land) plays Michael Logan, the boss of a West Lon­don nar­cotics task-force which includes Neil Maskell’s Mar­tin. They’re coke-hoover­ing, bul­ly boy repro­bates who’ve turned author­i­ty into per­son­al advan­tage and are in league with the eth­nic crim­i­nals they pur­port to despise. Anoth­er fan­tas­ti­cal­ly ver­sa­tile actor, Richard Dormer, plays the weasi­ly anti-cor­rup­tion offi­cer who’s on to them, while Stephen Gra­ham pops up part way through as a senior offi­cer with whom Michael shares a trou­bled past.

Hye­na sees the gang switch alle­giance from Turk­ish drug smug­glers to a pair of Alban­ian gang­ster broth­ers, the Kabashis (Orli Shu­ka and Gje­vat Kel­men­di), who Logan is lat­er tasked to inves­ti­gate. They’re a hulk­ing, ter­ri­fy­ing pair described as ​“a new breed of crim­i­nal” and are shown as limb-lop­pers, sex-traf­fick­ers and also — in scenes which chill as much as any of the film’s vio­lence — as fam­i­ly men.

A sub-plot involv­ing a traf­ficked woman, Ari­ana (Elisa Lasows­ki, excel­lent), is han­dled in a way that’s effec­tive­ly unset­tling in sequences which deliv­er the hor­ri­fy­ing impact the sub­ject mat­ter deserves. She’s trad­ed in a crowd­ed street for a small bag of cash and is impris­oned and abused in a house on an afflu­ent street. Oth­er aspects are less suc­cess­ful, includ­ing a reveal via a record­ing device that’s a lit­tle too con­ve­nient and, although MyAn­na Bur­ing brings a flash of sooth­ing human­i­ty, she’s squan­dered in a small role as Michael’s girlfriend.

The film hangs heav­i­ly on Ferdinando’s broad shoul­ders — both lit­er­al­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly — and this impres­sive actor stands up to the scruti­ny of close focus. For a good while, Hye­na dri­ves for­ward with real urgency and pal­pa­ble men­ace. How­ev­er, hack­neyed exchanges, clunky expo­si­tion and pre­dictable plot devel­op­ments act as speed bumps break­ing its con­fi­dent charge. It lacks the depth and dia­logue to match its visu­al feroc­i­ty and the clout of its cast. Johnson’s film starts out rac­ing before devel­op­ing a bit of a limp; its beau­ti­ful­ly cap­tured bru­tal­i­ty and hyp­no­tis­ing rev­el­ry hint at the mas­ter­ful film that might have been.