Dead On The Vine

A couple of bumbling gangsters on the lam head into the grounds of a winery after they bungle a snatch-and-grab operation in a small East Sussex village.

Ellis (Whitney) and Drayton (Sawyer) are on their way home from a job. The atmosphere is tense and no-one is saying anything in the car. As Ellis tries to keep his mind on the road, Drayton starts having a seizure next to him on the front seat. With nowhere else to go, and an unfamiliarity with his surroundings, Ellis takes the nearest turn-off into the Goldspur Winery, where he hopes he can find rest and a helping hand.

At the winery are Cora (Browne) and Joni (Johnston), the owners, who are getting ready for an evening of wine-tasting with a dozen would-be investors. Having Ellis and Drayton there – or was it Joe and Chris, or Scott? – is a definite hindrance to the girls, but their ingrained hospitality as career hostesses gets the better of them and they offer a little bit of lunch to get the boys back on their feet.

Once the local copper turns up though, it’s lights out for her and the boys are back on the crazy train with their bad-boy antics. Cora and Joni are now terrified, and there’s now a dead body to deal with, along with the kidnapped guy in the boot of the car, to make up the roster of elements needed for a standard mob caper. Cora and Joni have a twist of their own to offer the two unhinged gangsters, and once everything’s wound tight into a neat little ball, everyone’s set to run around doing their thing to see out the rest of the runtime. Oh, and the great Kate Robbins also turns up to teach everybody how to do things properly.

Dead On The Vine, from writer/director, Mark A.C. Brown, and DP, Kieran Coyle, follows some pretty standard tropes as it sets up its home invasion/ job gone wrong storyline. We’ve got the two desperate men at a crossroads, one out-of-control brother with a penchant for violence, an isolated rural location with minimal interference from the outside world, and some seemingly helpless hostages who turn out to be anything but victims. There are plenty more besides, but these main ones carry us through most of the film as everyone plays their parts.

With the first act of Dead On The Vine we have to go through a lot of to-ing and fro-ing as Brown tries to sell the plausibility of the setup. The should we, shouldn’t we, from the women, along with the nice guy, not nice guy, from the men, means that the characters struggle to settle into themselves for a long time. It’s not until around half-way through that we finally see some development that matters, and we see some originality other than the oddly grand setting of an empty winery.

Once the other shoe drops though, we’re into a fine little romp around the grounds and the factory, with good wine, good food, and a little bit of ultra-violence. When Kate Robbins arrives to turn things up to eleven, the strands are already beginning to unravel, and we can sit back and enjoy everything unfolding in front of us. The score from Ian Arber, helps things along immensely, with his Western inspired strings and the intense brooding that he provides, and of course, Kieran Coyle’s experienced hand behind the camera means that every shot gets the showing that it deserves, with there being some truly stunning pieces of photography along the way.

With Brown trying to keep his dialogue as everyday as possible, for believability, he sometimes strays into mundanity instead. The ‘getting to know you’ of the characters can feel expository at times, and at others people seem to be talking just to be talking. The actors do a great job of delivering their roles though, and there are committed performances from the four main cast members, with Shereener Browne standing out from the small crowd. Kate Robbins just eats up the scenery when she arrives, however, and reminds everyone of why she’s the class act that she is.

After eighty-minutes, Dead On The Vine has done what it set out to do and delivered a fine gangster romp. The scripting and the acting are mostly palatable, while the direction, photography, and sound design, leave a pleasant taste in the mouth. Although it takes a little while to settle, once it allows itself to breathe, Dead On The Vine offers itself as an enjoyable accompaniment to a pleasant evening in.