Orthodox

Making a refreshing change from the mean streets of the capital's East End, a northern English Jewish community is the setting for this dark and unusual crime drama. Stephen Graham stars as Benjamin, a struggling kosher butcher who moonlights as an illegal bare-knuckle boxer to provide for his wife (Rebecca Callard) and their two children. Benjamin is already the black sheep of his strictly religious family, but when the community's shady fixer, Michael Smiley's slimy Shannon, proposes a job that will earn some easy money, a fateful decision turns Benjamin's life inside out. Switching genres at every turn, what begins as a standard one-last-job gangster film soon becomes a moral tale of destiny and history repeating, with Benjamin seeing himself reflected in troubled young upstart Daniel (Giacomo Mancini). The frequent change of tone means the film never quite settles, but the chemistry between Graham and Smiley is gripping throughout and keeps things simmering until their inevitable, explosive showdown.