Dom Hemingway

Jude Law trashes his slick matinée-idol image once and for all in this uneven but sporadically hilarious black comedy. He plays the title character, a violent, podgy, balding safecracker who's released back onto the streets of London after serving 12 years inside. Teaming up with his old mate Dickie Black (Richard E Grant, cast wonderfully against type), the foul-mouthed, fast-living Hemingway heads to the south of France to collect his reward from millionaire criminal mastermind Mr Fontaine (Demián Bichir) for doing the time. Fate has other plans for him, however, and soon Dom is broke and on the make once more. The first half of this raucous yarn from director Richard Shepard (The Matador), with its manic energy and no-limits attitude, is by far the strongest, with the second half drifting into the cartoonish gangster world of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Law, though, commands the screen throughout, even rallying the film to an unexpectedly emotional climax involving Dom and his far-from-thrilled-to-see-him daughter (played by Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke).