Review: 'Blood' Starring Paul Bettany and Mark Strong

The titular Blood of Nick Murphy's British cop drama has little to do with the victims of some rampaging serial killer; it's the familial tie that binds an entire generation of cops, working to maintain sanity in a world that seems to have gone insane. There's little about Blood that is truly unique, but with an oppressive mood and a low-key, grounded approach, it's a surprisingly effective morality tale and crime procedural, even if it doesn't always feel big screen-worthy.

Based on the BBC series Conviction, and written by the show's original scribe, the film follows the Fairburn brothers Joe (Paul Bettany) and Chrissy (Stephen Graham), cop sons whose father Lenny (Brian Cox) was a hard-nosed police chief of some legend. Now stricken with Alzheimer's, Lenny often harkens back to the good old days when cops were free to crack skulls, often taking suspects out to the islands where they could force a confession in secrecy. 

The old ways come roaring back after a teen girl is found stabbed to death at a skate park, and the ensuing public uproar over her death demands a quick resolution. The Fairburn boys are on the case, along with their reclusive but dogged colleague Robert (Mark Strong), and a suspect quickly emerges in Jason Buleigh, (Ben Crompton) a crazed ex-con turned religious zealot who knew the victim intimately. Convinced he committed the crime but with no way to prove it, Joe and Chrissy drag Jason out to the islands to scare out a confession, but when things go deadly wrong it's the brothers who find themselves on the bad end of the law.

It's a set up we've seen numerous times before; good cops are pushed too far and become the criminals they are sworn to defend against, but the added twist of forcing Joe and Chrissy to investigate their own crime is never less than thrilling, mostly due to some strong character work by Bettany and Graham. It feels like forever since we've seen Bettany take on a meaty role (he's been fighting demons, vampires, and voicing Iron Man's armor for years), and his depiction of Joe's overwhelming guilt and unraveling mental state is superb. It's Mark Strong who perhaps turns out the best, though, as Robert is the most fully-realized character of all. Breaking free from playing villains, Strong adds complexity to Robert, who begins to suspect that there's more to Jason's disappearance than the brothers are letting on. A loner with a troubled personal history and fear of commitment, Robert's only connection to anything is through his job, which he tackles with a ferocity that makes him a pariah even to his colleagues. He shares a brilliantly intense scene with Cox where they snarl at one another making thinly veiled threats backed by an unquestionable confidence.

Murphy, who made his big screen debut with the supernatural thriller The Awakening, is primarily a TV veteran and it shows. Despite an effectively chilly atmosphere, the film has the smallish feel of an extended television episode, often falling into the same clichés and overdone dialogue that make up the cop genre. But there's also a great attention to character detail, and we learn so much about them that we can understand their motivations, no matter how questionable they may be.  Murphy does lose control and pound on the melodrama a little too heavy in a bid to raise the stakes, but the performances are nuanced enough to keep it from being too much of a distraction.  Blood doesn't exactly break the mold, but it explores the blurred line between cop and villain with genuine emotional heft.