"“It simply screams of Sunday night TV drama...”"

Director Nick Murphy's debut feature film The Awakening was selected for last year's London Film Festival, and now the British director returns with his second feature film Blood, which once again, is set to premiere at this Autumn’s annual event.

We follow brothers and police detectives Joe (Paul Bettany) and Chrissie Fairburn (Stephen Graham), forever living in the shadow of their father and former police chief Lenny (Brian Cox), who is now suffering from Alzheimer's disease. The brothers – alongside fellow cop Robert Seymour (Mark Strong) - are currently searching for the merciless killer of a young teenage girl.

The prime suspect is local lunatic and church-goer Jason Buleigh (Ben Crompton) although as Joe and Chrissie dig further into the case it soon appears that all is not as it seems, as there is soon blood on the hands of more than one perpetrator connected to the case...

There is little back-story to Blood, as Murphy throws us right into the murder case as soon as the film begins, disallowing the opportunity for the audience to get to know the characters beforehand, as it all feel too rushed somewhat. However, it is clever how Murphy leads us to believe the film is to be centred around this murder of the young, innocent girl – yet as the story progresses, it transpires that the main narrative is somewhat different to what we had been expecting, as we soon delve into a different case altogether, as Murphy intelligently deviates away from the initial murder mystery.

The performances across the board are strong, particularly from our protagonist Bettany who turns in a highly impressive performance as Joe – a man on the verge of an emotional collapse. As his mental state declines rapidly, Bettany perfectly encapsulates a character overcome with remorse and paranoia. However, on the whole Blood is overly melodramatic, which although justified in the latter stages as the film reaches it's conclusion, does seem overstated earlier on.

The biggest issue with Blood, however, is the decision to release this cinematically, as it simply screams of Sunday night TV drama. It needs something more to it, to have more cinematic scope and to be more unique to warrant it's big-screen viewing and ticket price. Instead, Blood is just your conventional, standard-quality cop drama, which had it been on the telly would be criticised accordingly, and would actually be far more well-received as a result.