After spending the best part of a decade on its creation, Tony Burke’s feature debut, Protein, has finally made it into the world. The idea began as a short film back in 2014 and has gradually progressed to a fully fledged feature that has just received its world premiere at this year’s Pigeon Shrine FrightFest.
Protein screened at the festival as part of the First Blood selection, a strand of programming that celebrates the best new voices working in UK genre cinema. The film’s position in the line-up is warranted as Burke displays great flair within his icky crime thriller. Having starred in the short film version of Protein, actor Craig Russell returns to play Sion. A former soldier weighed down heavily by PTSD, Sion is a nomad who lives for the gym. After arriving in a small rural Welsh town, he begins helping out at a local gym in exchange for free workout time. There he crosses paths with some of the local criminals, and after killing one of their number in order to eat them, Sion inadvertently sparks a bloody turf war.
Although presented as the protagonist, Sion is far from a straightforward hero. It is revealed early on that Sion is a drifter for a reason – he is a killer with a cannibalistic appetite. He has to be continually on the move to avoid the police who are hunting him. Sion is an interesting character to place into the lead role and one that challenges the audience. Whilst his demeanour is far more considerate than the drug dealers he starts to hunt and eat, he is still eating other people. The viewers’ attraction to Sion is tied into society’s fascination with serial killers and cannibalism. The validity of Sion’s role as ‘hero’ provides a great moral quandary for the audience that can be discussed at length post viewing.
As Sion, Craig Russell is exceptional. Rather than play him larger than life, or as overly charismatic, he opts instead to play the character as invisible. In order to live the way he does, Sion must remain unremarkable to those around him and Russell’s considered performance reflects this. The character blends into the background. Russell also imbues Sion with a stillness. Sion is a quiet man whose demeanour is reinforced by his rigidity. Beneath this stoicism is an apparent veil of violence Russell conjures up the sensation that Sion is a coiled cobra ready to strike. Most impressively, it is Russell’s performance that helps push the character into the vital shades of grey needed to induce uneasy feelings within the audience. Were Russell to have come down on a loud and brash portrayal that went heavy on evil, audience allegiances would shift. As it stands, Russell keeps the viewer on side.
Sion’s prey consists of several of the usual low-life drug dealers and criminals, but even with them, Burke is careful to make them more than stereotypes. Time is spent with a number of the men, allowing the opportunity for them to be fleshed out and made more human. It’s an important manoeuvre that saves Protein from becoming an archetypal revenge thriller.
With cannibalism a heavy focus of the narrative, Burke keeps the shooting style more naturalistic. Cannibalism is a fanciful enough notion that Protein needs a calm visual presentation in order to keep itself grounded. Burke’s decision to follow Sion and shoot aspects of the murders and dismemberments from a distance introduces a documentary style element that works beautifully. Whilst shot from a step removed, these sequences are full of bloody carnage, which will delight bloodthirsty viewers.
Another strong decision that Burke makes with Protein is in locating the story in rural Wales. Many films that are made in Britain place themselves in and around London; this is especially true of stories featuring drug dealers and criminals. These films give the impression that crime only exists in the big smoke, which the audience knows is not true. In shifting to rural Wales, Burke manages to do something similar to Shane Meadows with Dead Man’s Shoes and present a more accurate reflection of modern society within the United Kingdom.
After years in the making, Burke, Russell, and the rest of the Protein team should be proud of the result of their long labours. Dead Man’s Shoes with aspects of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Protein is a fantastic example of modern British filmmaking and a perfect addition to the First Blood strand.
Protein
Summary
A decade of hard work pays off for director Tony Burke, with Protein a fascinating study of a broken and depraved mind.
Protein was reviewed at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest 2024.
