There are so many movies available to watch in so many different ways on any number of platforms, that long-forgotten and overlooked titles emerge from out of nowhere to find a new lease of life that nobody saw coming. The latest honoree of the accolade is 2012’s lo-fi British action thriller Offender, and it’s been making quite the splash.
As per FlixPatrol, the hard-hitting tale of Peaky Blinders and Gangs of London star Joe Cole seeking revenge on the thugs who brutally beat his pregnant fiancee has become the number one most-watched title on iTunes in the United Kingdom, while it’s also sitting in eighth position on the Irish ranks, and has comfortably secured a spot on the global rundown, too.
In an effort to exact his retribution, Cole’s Tommy gets himself incarcerated into Britain’s most notorious and corrupt institution for young offenders, where he learns to play the game in order to get closer to his targets. Despite its generic setup and under-the-radar existence, director Ron Scalpello’s street-level effort holds a strong Rotten Tomatoes score of 70 percent.
User ratings are a touch lower at 53 percent, though, but a film a huge number of people may never even have heard of becoming the biggest hit on a service like iTunes completely out of nowhere is an achievement that’s as remarkable as it is unexpectedly bizarre. Then again, the on-demand charts throw up surprises on an almost daily basis, so maybe it’s not all that much of a shock for Offender to be dragged kicking and screaming back into the light.
Published: Aug 3, 2022 12:35 pm