✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
United Kingdom · 2014
1h 52m
Director Gerard Johnson
Starring Peter Ferdinando, Stephen Graham, Neil Maskell, Elisa Lasowski
Genre Crime, Drama, Thriller
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A corrupt police officer's plans go awry when a deal he was planning with a member of a Turkish drug cartel goes sour, and the balance of power swings to an Albanian gang run by two brothers, the Kabashis. Logan offers the Albanians the same service he provided the Turks, but they aren't easily convinced.
The film's convoluted moral trajectory to hell may be as unoriginal as quoting Taxi Driver, and the pervasive violent menace can be needlessly punishing (including a drugged sexual assault), but as stylish, scorched-earth entertainment, it'll get you in its teeth.
Gerard Johnson's sophomore feature might look on the outset like the type of London crime thriller usually populated by Jason Statham, but it's more emotionally complex than its outset gives it credit for.
Slant Magazine by Kenji Fujishima
The Gerard Johnson film's blanket cynicism is its most shopworn quality of all.
Writer-director Gerard Johnson and chameleon-like star Ferdinando continue to impress with their strong collaboration here.
Hyena may be grim, but it’s also grimly engrossing in a way that gets under the skin.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
The movie moves on to some grandstanding moments, before finally painting itself into a corner. The ending is frustrating: it runs out of ideas before the final credits. But Johnson packs an almighty punch.
Seedy, unsettling and nightmarish, director Gerard Johnson crafts a suspenseful and anxious journey despite the destination pointing to obvious points well known.
There’s nothing out of order here—the locales are appropriately dingy and atmospheric, the lead character is compellingly rotten, the plot tightens to a vise squeeze in the third act—but every beat that isn’t provided by The The strikes exactly where it’s expected.
Hyena doesn’t stint on creating a grubbily repellent universe, but it never gives us one solid reason to stick around.
Time Out London by Trevor Johnston
Hyena is startling, claustrophobic and penetrating in its analysis of the blurred lines involved in doing good.
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