Four is an excellent film until about two-thirds of the way through, and still a pretty good film after that. It is well worth a watch—and a re-watch--for its brilliant acting and cinematography, gorgeous setting, and darkly humorous dialogue. It crackles with mood, energy, and anticipation. This is director John Langridge's first feature film and his gritty visual style complements the subject well. Writer Paul Chronnell's background as a comedy writer also suits the film, with its particularly British combination of the morbid and the hilarious. The bad guys here are not the killers and gangsters of the Hollywood movies or of the newspaper stories to which the characters refer, but are mostly average, if seedy, men who attempt to imitate these larger-than-life villains and find that it's not as easy as it looks.
About an hour in, it starts to go a bit south. The dialogue and plot initiated by the supposedly strong female character becomes slightly ridiculous and unrealistic, as is The Husband's reaction to her. This man paid a detective to kidnap and tie up his wife and her lover but he won't even go into the woman's pocket to get a lighter, he's so scared of her. Considering how insecure The Husband clearly is, though, this abrupt turnabout might be believable until The Detective returns, but not then. The Detective has spent the entire film to this point proving how calmly ruthless and clever he is, but we're supposed to believe that he just stands there, deflated, in the face of The Wife. How did he ever get her to the warehouse in the first place? Although the twist is meant to represent a feminist break from the typical woman-as-victim scenario, it doesn't quite work. There are some plot holes, such as the fact that the blood spatter that covers a murderer would be quite enough to alert the police to who really did the killing.
Until this last third, however, the film is quite engrossing and artistically shot. Sean Pertwee shines in the role of The Detective. He is alternately violently sinister and affably comical. Although he could have been a one-dimensional tough guy beating a restrained man, his face is subtle when showing hints of his manipulative ability or his frustration with The Husband's lack of understanding. This layering of multiple emotions into one character creates a complexity that makes The Detective the most interesting one to watch. Martin Compston is perfectly in character as the scared young lover (whom The Detective refers to as his "irritating, squealing, moaning Scottish problem") and Craig Conway comes across exactly as he's meant to—as an impotently vengeful, spiteful man who tries to elevate himself in his own eyes by establishing power over those who have wronged him, and who mostly fails to do so. He also works beautifully as the straight man in Pertwee's comedy routine. Kierston Wareing as The Wife suffers from a few bad script and direction choices, but she is believable for what she's supposed to be. Perhaps none of the characters is particularly likable, but the audience still wants to know what they're going to do, and most end up doing precisely the opposite of what you'd expect in a typical film of this sort.
This film needs to be watched twice, maybe to catch the plot points about "The Family Man" that you didn't get the first time round, but definitely to appreciate the acting, the jokes, the shots, and the score. With only four actors, one location, and one plot, the film is not really about plot or action. It is a character study, and the atmosphere of the setting is one of the characters. Overall, considering the small budget and time spent, Four is far more of a success than not, and the critics who gave it low reviews should watch it again and reconsider.
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