Montana (2014) Review!!

Synopsis – In the mean streets of London’s East End, a former Serbian commando and a fourteen-year old boy plot revenge against a powerful crime lord and his ruthless lieutenants. As our heroes prepare to take on their enemies, the boy is mentored in the dark arts of assassination and learns the true meaning of friendship, honor and respect.

My Take – Just by looking at the trailer I knew what to expect from this film, a classic good vs evil redemption story with a British twist. Luckily for us as a viewer, it is a very pleasing experience. This is one of those movies where I had no idea how well it would play out when I started watching. The story follows a a former ex-Yugoslavian soldier, Dimitrije (Lars Mikkelsen), who has been hunting down the notorious ex war criminal now gangster Lazarus (Darrell D’Silva), who killed his family back in Berlin during the 1995 war. The chase has led them to present-day London, where hoodlums and gangsters rummage through the streets, looking for victims. The police force is naturally full of dirty cops who spoil countless investigations, which leaves the fuzz pretty much useless, and the citizens of London helpless.

Dimitrije therefore takes it upon himself to clean up the city, and secretly lurks on the roof-tops with his sniper-rifle, taking out scumbags every once in a while, much to the dismay of Lazarus and his men. One of Lazarus’ henchmen is the young Montana (McKell David), who falls out of grace, and is soon picked up by Dimitrije, who in turn trains him to be a lethal assassin, to help him get to Lazarus. Directed by the relatively unknown Mo Ali, here comes a violent, but earnest story, very similar to the movie “Leon (1994)” and that is a positive comparison to make as both movies played out really well in the form of redemption revenge flick. What at first glance seems like a routine revenge-story, quickly turns out to be more of a father-and-son tale, when Dimitrije and Montana gets a much closer relationship, as they’re both seeking a surrogate family, as they’re otherwise all alone in the world. After being disappointed with a lot of movies in the genre from the UK, frankly my expectations weren’t that high! The storyline is very well put together and there’s enough material to keep the movie interesting, which means I actually stayed awake through the whole film. I was surprised to see Michelle Fairley in this movie, who played Catelyn Stark in the Game Of Thrones, but she only has a few scenes. Adam Deacon plays a loud mouth, trigger happy, wannabe gangster who wants to take over the whole business by taking out his boss but his partner, played by Ashley Walters, thinks that the time isn’t right because of the random killings that are happening to the other drug dealers in the area by a mysterious assassin who wears a murders his victims with a motorcycle helmet.

This part of the story was a bit sketchy and unexplained, which is the only fault that I found with the movie. Apart from that, all of the actors put in good performances, especially Lars Mikkelsen ( Hannibals’ Mads Mikkelsen’s brother) who is brilliant! Debutant Mckell David as the titular character needs to work a little, mainly due to his uncanny resemblance to Jaden Smith. On the whole, ‘Montana’ is a pretty enjoyable UK gangster movie with a cool revenge story twist! A lot of people get shot & killed in this film, which after a point does get hilarious, but if you love a good actioner with likable leads and wicked baddies, then this is the film for you!