The Liability

Tim Roth leads the way in this quirky road movie playing Roy, a veteran hitman who hopes his latest job will be his last for ruthless boss Peter (Peter Mullan). However, he's forced to have Peter's girlfriend's wayward son, Adam (Jack O'Connell), do the driving. Along the way, Roy schools Adam in the art of professional killing, but Adam finds the work is less glamorous than he thought. When the hit is inadvertently witnessed by a young backpacker (Talulah Riley), the mismatched duo must hunt her down and tidy up myriad loose ends. Director Craig Viveiros kicks off the action in the style of a reluctant buddy film, but steadily builds the tension with neat plot twists and a growing rapport between the two. Roth is charismatically taciturn as the old hand (already having played the apprentice role in 1984's The Hit) and more sympathetic than his vicious employer, while O'Connell is convincingly wide-eyed and innocent as the off-the-rails teenager thrown in at the deep end.