The Debt Collector [DVD] [1999]

Billy Connolly has made the transition from comedy to straight dramatic roles with a great deal more success than most. In The Debt Collector he plays Nicky Dryden, a violent debt collector who has served 18 grim years in prison, only to have found rehabilitation on the outside as a successful sculptor and respectability in marriage to Francesca Annis. However, Keltie (Ken Stott) the policeman who originally arrested him is disgusted at this ex-con's social elevation and undertakes an obsessive campaign of stalking and harassment, refusing to allow him to bury his past. It is Keltie, in a sense, who is the true debt collector of the title--he doesn't believe Dryden either has or ever can repay society. Furthermore, Dryden is idolised by a young thug (Iain Robertson) who bases his psychotic lifestyle on Dryden's past exploits. Stott and Connolly make excellent, craggy adversaries, with the frustrated, embittered ex-cop cutting a menacing, though at times pathetic character, while Connolly's Dryden knows that his past, violent side is capable of erupting at any time. This gloomily compelling drama has moments of sickeningly concussive impact as it winds its way down to its tragic conclusion. Annette Crosbie as Keltie's vulnerable yet curiously strong Mother, turns in a fine supporting performance. --David Stubbs

16:9 Wide Screen
DVD 5
English
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 English
Dolby Digital 5.1
Theatrical Trailer
English

Billy Connolly is terrifyingly convincing as the seemingly rehabilitated Dryden and Ken Scott is superb as the obsessive policeman determined to see justice done at any price. Ex-con Nickie Dryden has done time. 18 years in one of the toughest prisons in Britain. Now he's married and made a new life for himself as an acclaimed sculptor. His old ways are deeply buried, but one man cannot forget.

United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 5.1 ), English ( Subtitles ), ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN (1.78:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Anamorphic Widescreen, Interactive Menu, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: The first feature of Anthony Neilson, The Debt Collector is a dark contemporary thriller set in Edinburgh. The protagonist, Nick Dryden, has just been released from prison after serving 16 years for murder. In his youth, he was Edinburgh's most notorious and violent criminal, but his rehabilitation has worked wonders. Now he is a free man, married to a successful journalist and admired in the art world for his strikingly disturbing sculptures. But for Gary Keltie, the policeman who arrested him, life has been different. Depressed by the futility of his job and alone in the world except for his aging mother, he resents Dryden's new-found success and vows to sabotage it. There is one more person who is also obsessed by Dryden: the seriously disturbed adolescent gangster Flipper, although his reasons are not hatred but hero worship. The three men are on a collision course in this modern Scottish myth which exposes the extremes of human nature. ...The Debt Collector