The Debt Collector (1999)

Very well executed

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

An Exercise In Nonsense

This is a deeply powerful and real film, wonderfully portraying the rage and madness which results from festering anger and resentment left unchecked. Billy Connolly plays a reformed thug living a new life as a respectable artist who is dragged back into the cycle of violence and revenge by Ken Stott's character, the policeman who originally caught him.I loved the realism of the relationships between the people. Nothing was left to the imagination and nothing was exaggerated, leaving bare the anger, fear, pain and regret which rules the characters during this horrible time in their lives.If you like Billy Connolly, watch this film. If you like gritty Scottish films, watch it. If you like good films which will play with your emotions, this is one to watch.

This could have been a great film as the four protagonists each put in a strong performance especially Francesca Annis who is brilliant.It attempts to be a serious examination about whether a man's abhorrent violent past can ever be forgiven by his victims and whether those who take their duty to serve to protect seriously, like the police officer Gary Keltie,(Ken Stott) (who had been instrumental in taking him off the streets some 18 years ago) who don't believe Nickie Dryden (Billy Connolly) is a changed man. Haunting all those directly involved are the harrowing past images of the torture and mayhem he inflicted on his victims.The film makes a well made contrast between those who can easily forgive because it is but a remote experience which happened to others of which they know little and those who have suffered either as victims or as those who were emotionally related to those victims. To the Edinburgh arty literati he had paid his price according to the official judicial system by serving a long jail sentence for murder and by appearing reformed through his talent developed in prison which squares his past and placates their easy conscience to forgive. Their easy forgiveness is contrasted to those who actually suffered whose still open wounds are articulated by the police detective Keltie character. The scepticism and disbelief of these silent witnesses is passionately articulated by the Gary Keltie,(Ken Stott)character.It is unusual for a film to show so clearly this demarcation and divergence between the two views depending on where you are standing. Objectivity and forgiveness is easy if you are not a victim yourself and this is wonderfully brought out later in the film when one of those to whom he is now close but to whom past is another country has to live through the same torments when someone dear to them is murdered in a similarly bloody and brutal way to that by which Nickie Dryden had dispatched his earlier victim for which he had served his 18 years. Despite all the fancy surroundings which Dryden's talent and infamy combined have brought him, including his very "uptown girl" writer wife Val, played by Francesca Annis (who Keltie believes is partly attracted by the aura of his past infamy) Keltie believes him to be a fake: as also interestingly does the wannabe thug Flipper (Iain Robertson) who hero worships Dryden's past image.If it had stuck to portraying in a more realistic way the central theme of which, if either, of the 3 views (1) whether or not Dryden's debt "to society" is repaid by serving the officially sanctioned sentence and coming out a seemingly reformed character and accepted in official society or (2) whether he really is faking at being a changed man and (3) whether his debt can ever repaid and forgiven by his real victims (or those close to them) and those whose job it is to protect them, then this would have been a great film.As it is where it all falls apart into disbelief are several volcanic graphic, outrageous, completely over the top scenes, where the Gary Keltie,(Ken Stott) character himself commits violent acts which go way beyond angst and disbelief over demonstrating to himself and those he seeks to protect, that Nickie Dryden (Billy Connolly) can ever be anything but the psychopath he knew and put away. The only purpose of two of these scenes, the one at the art gallery and the other at a wedding that I can think of is that it contrasts the real difficulty which those who were or witnessed at 1st hand his victims suffering have in forgiving someone who harmed them with those to whom the remote experience of his perpetrated violence means very little. The 3rd scene is just so ridiculous and outrageous as it descends from an advocacy by Keltie by public challenges to the legitimacy of official forgiveness to that of private and personal revenge thereby descending to the similar level of depravity as the criminals whose behaviour he hates so much.The script seems to be saying that by Keltie being unable to contemplate a reformed perpetrator he sets in motion his own destruction being unable to shake off his "lifer" grudge against Dryden.I find it difficult for even the most conscientious detective, 18 years on, to be so obsessed to the point of near insanity with one particular past criminal given the number of hard cases he would have come across in the meantime especially one who is no longer trying to reestablish himself on old stomping grounds (literally) that he would jeopardise not only his career but put his life on the line to pursue a current non-criminal even if he is completely convinced that Nickie Dryden is a fraud.

Great character story. No good guys and no bad guys, just human beings. Yes, we find it difficult to sympathise with any of them, but then it's not supposed to be an emotional story, just a series of character sketches. Connolly did not give a great performance and in many scenes where others might survive a close-up we see his head drop out of view (what's he hiding - lack of ability perhaps?). However, I would recommend it to anyone who likes sombre tales about ex-cons who do or don't make it. I'd like to see a remake with De Niro and Pacino - although I think they've already done it. What's it called?

My title isn't to imply that this movie isn't worth seeing. If you can stand the despair, this movie is fantastic. I found that the words of the Greeks came back to me as I was watching The Debt Collector. "Those whom the gods will destroy, they first make mad". It seemed apt for a modern tragedy in the tradition of Sophocles.The best technique that Neilson used was lighting. It's rare to have a movie that goes from such brightness to such gloom. The wedding scene, for instance, was as bright and cheerful as you expect such a scene to be, but after Keltie's parting shot, we are outside, in the rain, the dark, the gloom... perfect!The violence is something that others have commented on. It is so unlike the Hollywood violence that we are accustomed to seeing. This violence is very real, and more shocking and horrifying because of it. All the male lead characters were capable of violence, and it made me wonder how close we all are from such displays.The Debt Collector is a story of hatred gone to extremes. It spoke to me of how hatred and revenge are empty ideas... and how it is much more important, if difficult to forgive those who have harmed you, and not to live in the past.This movie is not for everyone, but if you are interested in tragedy, then you should see this film.