“The serenity for which he laboured was shattered as he realised the little time he had in life to read so much”.
What audacity to begin a film with a quote from John Edward William’s resurrected classic novel, Stoner.
It’s an audacity followed with a subdued bombasticity in THE TOLL, written by Matt Redd and directed by Ryan Hooper.
A Taffy Tarantino, a Coen Brothers by way of Cardiff, a wacky ride through the Wild West of Wales, THE TOLL tills the tropes of the quirky crime caper with an articulate mattock, ploughing furrows of fertile character and taking a pick to English chauvinism.
A bloke with a mysterious past mans a tuppenny toll booth in a rare bit of Welsh wasteland. In his solitude, he reads John Edward Williams’ novel, Stoner. In quick succession, his solitude is shattered by a stick up by the Morgan triplets, a trio of teens who dress like Pussy Riot, Bonnie and Clyde wannabees with a third wheel, as well as an accidental visit from a dark past.
Armed robbery, kidnapping and killing attract cops like maggots to corpses and sure enough, the local constabulary in the form of Catrin comes courting.
Catrin’s policing has been focused on traffic for the past year, a personal campaign since her father was fatally felled by a hit and run driver exactly a year ago. She’s been successful at keeping the road toll down but the death toll in the town begins to rise exponentially as the toll booth operator’s past toils come to light.
Catrin’s Ushanka cap wearing cop is redolent of Marge from Fargo, another nod and a wink to the film’s antecedents in tone, mood and comedy.
Dogging, dodging, digging, a blind barfly and an edge of reality Elvis impersonator are thrown into the mix of a time jiggled narrative where justice, some rough, some sweet, presides and prevails.
A taut one hour and twenty minutes does not take a toll on the attention span, making THE TOLL a wild, wacky and witty diversion, a daffy distraction from the plague ridden world we live in.
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