What a strange film. It begins as a crime thriller and ends up becoming an indictment against war in Africa; in my opinion it is far more successful at the former.<br /><br />An asylum seeker fleeing the fighting in the Congo, gets a job at a security guard in a bank in Eire. He seems a trustworthy sorta fella, however, his wife and child have gone missing in London. When the authorities track them down and grant them all leave to stay, it's seems it will be a happy ending after all. But when an Irish gang kidnap the guy's family in order to get him to cooperate in a little heist they have planned, they don't count on his resilience. As well as a few skeletons he has in the closet that could have them think twice..<br /><br />No-one's behaviour in this film makes any sense! Character's personalities change at the drop of a hat, and seemingly intelligent people make some stupid decisions for no other reason then to add some spice to the plot. Unfortunately this shoddy scriptwriting cripples our interest in the second half of the film, with one 'outrageous' revelation after another resulting in a forced tragic ending.<br /><br />Shame, because the opening scenes are very promising, with Eriq Ebouaney portraying a very sympathetic hero, and Fatou N'Diaye also impressive as his deceptively strong partner. Perhaps the film have been better if the movie had been about their reintegration into a new culture after surviving a traumatic ordeal in a war-torn environment.<br /><br />But no, we get the classic stereotypical gang of chirpy Irish hoodlums, a botched bank raid and then the bloody aftermath, which is where things really come off the rails. There isn't a single event that occurs in the last half an hour that convinces, not one happening that doesn't feel tacked on and absolutely zero elements that aren't stolen from better movies.<br /><br />Just because a film has a humanistic social agenda it doesn't give it the right to be this lacklustre. Someone should have taken the first twenty pages of this script, developed the plot from there are thrown the rest of it on the fire. In my opinion, anyway. What could have been, we'll never know.. 4/10