The isolated environment corresponds brilliantly with the increasingly isolated state of mind of the protagonist, Vaughan. Matt Palmer brings remarkable assurance for a first time director – the visuals are fantastically evocative without being needlessly flashy. With the exception of one tyre-slashing confrontation, however, this is thankfully successfully steered through, with some dialogue even assigned (non-jarringly) to exactly why the locals would be so pissed off with their lot in life and city-slick interlopers. The script and performances do flirt with the antagonistic-local-yokel stereotype that is the downfall of many films with similar backdrops. The supporting performances of Tony Curran, Ian Pirie, and Kate Bracken keep the wider ensemble’s standard very high. Given so much hangs on the central performances, it is just as well Lowden and McCann are very much up to their roles. The tightening of this vice may happen at the behest of Palmer’s script, but beyond the immediate dramatic imperative the character reactions are what draw the viewer in. Vaughan and Marcus’s choices are slowly but surely restricted and closed down, with the supporting locals inadvertently acting like boa constrictors in wax jackets. Instead, a focus on human reactions makes this a surprisingly character-focused film for such a plot-driven story. Given the visceral horrors the visuals could easily have thrown up, it is interesting that gratuitous gore is not generally on the agenda. The events unfold with increasing horror, and the film conveys this stylishly and without the usual verbal hand-wringing. Throughout, Palmer’s visuals support an appropriately lean script. …a focus on human reactions makes this a surprisingly character-focused film for such a plot-driven story. What follows is a sort of smart, be-tartaned and much better made VERY BAD THINGS. As convention and ominous music dictates, an accident occurs and the two men’s decisions spiral them further down a particularly dark rabbit hole. Jack Lowden plays Vaughan, taken hunting in the Highlands by his friend Marcus (Martin McCann) as a final hurrah before the birth of his first child. Few films, though, fill in those valleys and crags with both visual flair and characters as compelling as the landscapes they traverse. Matt Palmer’s CALIBRE is not the first film to utilise the dramatic setting of Scotland’s Highlands to heighten its own thriller stylings, nor will it be the last.
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