Face (directed by Antonia Bird, scripted by Ronan Bennett) is a violent film portraying a couple of days in the lives of an East End gang of armed robbers. The film attempts to show them as people with the same concerns about relationships and families as the rest of us. It depicts the gang falling out over the proceeds of a ram-raid that nets them a mere £340,000 instead of the hoped-for £2m. One member steals the others’ shares and kills the elderly friends of the gang leader Ray (Robert Carlyle) in the process.
Motivated by anger at this betrayal, a desire for revenge and determination to recover “his” money, Ray launches a frantic attempt to uncover the traitor and find the loot. This takes him on a blood-soaked journey culminating in a desperate infiltration of the local police station.
Brief flashbacks show Ray’s past as a political activist. The violence as the gang turn on each other prompts Ray’s recollections of riot cops clubbing pickets to the ground. His mother and girlfriend, involved in campaigning against deportation orders, urge him to abandon his life of crime but to no avail.
Face does not explain Ray’s conversion from causes to crime. Instead it shows the greed and obsession that lead people, living otherwise everyday lives, to pursue the lure of money by desperate means until it brings about their destruction. The gang seem powerless to resist this urge, although as the heavy, Dave (a fine performance by Ray Winstone) admits, he could have made more from a job driving a van.
Face is expertly directed by Antonia Bird on a very low budget. Robert Carlyle is excellent as the sympathetic but flawed Ray and is given good support by a cast with several familiar faces.