Tony

A low-budget portrait of a serial killer who walks the streets of London might sound like a somewhat grim outing, and Tony – the debut feature from writer/director Gerard Johnson – will not be to everyone’s taste. However, this quirky offering is sure to attain cult status. Previously unknown actor Peter Ferdinando takes the title role of Tony, the dysfunctional and socially isolated inhabitant of a Dalston council flat. Tony has never had a job, lives on benefits, is obsessed with action films and is desperately lonely. He tries to make conversation with the South Asian selling bootleg DVDs on the street corner. He invites drug dealers back to his flat for company. He offers a prostitute £5 for a cuddle. Some people humour him, but most eventually recoil at his oddball nature… and that’s when the problems start. Those that go to Tony’s flat and aren’t nice to him end up being beaten with a hammer or suffocated with a plastic bag. Tony then props them up on the sofa for companionship, until the smell gets too much and he has to dismember and dispose of the remains. When a child disappears from the estate, it’s not surprising that this strange loner become the suspect of local suspicions.

Tony is as gruesome and occasionally harrowing as it sounds. Surprisingly though, there is also some dark humour at play here. Tony picks up a gay man at the Joiners Arms in Shoreditch and takes him home for company. “Got any trance?” asks his cocaine-snorting guest. “No, but I’ve got Paul Young, No Parlez?” replies Tony, oblivious to the inappropriateness of his suggestion. There could be a touch of Dennis Nilsen behind Tony, but whereas the infamous Muswell Hill killer was, by day, a respected civil servant, Tony’s persistent unemployment only adds to his isolation.

Ferdinando offers an understated, low-key performance to portray his character’s vulnerability, loneliness and, ultimately, murderous instability. Johnson maintains a tense atmosphere through the film’s wisely economical duration (80 minutes), and there’s an original, atmospheric and very welcome soundtrack from The The (aka Matt Johnson) – a band that haven’t produced any new material in several years.

Ultimately, Tony offers little in the way of plot – we are simply invited to watch a week in the character’s life. That said, this bleak, surreal and gloomy British film offers up one what is sure to be one of the year’s most memorable cinematic bad guys.

Last edited: 5th February 2010

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