It is no great aberration in the modern mysteries of film finances that the Manhattan-set “5lbs of Pressure” was, for whatever reason, shot in Manchester, England. While the ruse works well enough superficially — maybe the industrial U.K. city is even more persuasively “gritty” than NYC these days — it might partly explain why writer-director Phil Allocco’s crime melodrama, out from Lionsgate in theaters and on demand, feels like it takes place in some semi-mythological movie genreland rather than a palpable, flesh-and-blood community. That doesn’t hobble its violent thriller aspects, but it does limit our emotional involvement in its two-dimensional characters that we are expected to view as tragic figures.
Named after the lethal force behind a handgun’s trigger release, “5lbs” weaves an engaging-enough web of misunderstandings, grudges and doomed trajectories amongst various shady types. Those lines criss-cross in the kind of Noo Yawk neighborhood that seems little changed from the one seen in Martin Scorsese’s “Mean Streets” more than a half-century ago — at least in this depiction. A polished, colorfully populated endeavor, “5lbs” holds attention without leaving much of a lingering impression. The problem is that Allocco’s dramatic personae are exclusively defined by their outer conflicts; we never really glimpse any inner life, or feel they’re connected to a world beyond hoodlum narrative formulas.
After a framing tease of mysterious gunfire inside a dive bar opens the film, onscreen text alerts that it’s now “Four Days Earlier.” Adam DeSalvo (Luke Evans) is approaching the end of three years’ probation following another 16 in prison, convicted for a murder committed during a dumb turf-war flareup between youthful hotheads. Adam’s kept his nose clean, but he’s not seeking a fresh start elsewhere. Instead, he’s returned to old stomping grounds, even though his presence may tempt belated vengeance from those he once hurt — notably, Eli (Zac Adams), the brother of his late victim, as well as his histrionically-grieving mother (Olivia Carruthers).
Bedding down in a friend’s storeroom and squeaking by on a bartender’s pay, Adam is willing to take that risk in the hopes that he can repair relations with his ex and their child. But Donna (Stephanie Leonidas) wants nothing to do with him. Adam’s further dismayed to discover his teenaged son Jimmy (Rudy Pankow) doesn’t even know he exists, living under the belief that his father simply “abandoned” him and his mother long ago. Stonewalled, Adam nonetheless tries to establish renewed contact on both fronts.
Meanwhile, the local climate of toxic machismo and organized crime that presumably first led the ex-con astray has continued unabated. Leff (Alex Pettyfer) is a drug dealer who’s reluctantly hired his nephew, Mike (Rory Culkin), as his none-too-bright gofer. What Mike really wants is to make it as a rock musician — a pipe dream shared with Eli, his best friend. Mike is dumb enough to think he might bankroll that dream by pulling a big score and running around the watchful, unforgiving Leff.
Needless to say, that scheme is not destined to go well, given the ruthlessness of other felonious figures played by Lorraine Burroughs and James Oliver Wheatley. As the conflict heats up, Adam’s return to the neighborhood attracts notice — not least from Eli, whose anger is already spiraling amidst strife with his perpetually on-again, off-again girlfriend, Lori (Savannah Steyn).
Nearly every interpersonal dynamic here plays in a combative, “Oh yeah?!?” nature. That might seem less pat if the characters had demonstrable private sides, or were treated with at least occasional humor. But each of them are fairly one-note, including Adam, who’s simply painted as a repentant nice guy, with scant hint of the wee hooligan he used to be.
Though a couple performers lean too far into stereotype, the actors generally do what they can to keep things naturalistic, even when the action is menacing or grisly. (Gary McDonald makes an impression as an enforcer doling out grievous ocular damage to tardy debtors.) But the ensemble seldom seems to be fully suggest any non-pulp reality — and still the film expects us to be moved by their assumed pathos.
That split personality is nicely defined by the frequently rich, stylized lighting effects of DP Sara Deane’s color-noir visual atmospherics, which doesn’t square with a climactic array of unearned sentimentality: forced pleas against gun violence, a teary montage of flashbacks, back-to-back “sensitive” acoustic pop songs.
Such devices might work in a gloomy street crime melodrama with the tragic depth of “Donnie Brasco.” They’re less successful in one that doesn’t wax more plaintive than hard-boiled Donna grousing at her jailbird ex, “Ya got some balls ta come ovah heah.” Sufficiently entertaining as a yarn filled with itchy trigger-fingers sure to take out a few lives, “5lbs of Pressure” falls short when it counts on its audience to experience those losses as anything more than the standard toll of underworld melodrama.