A tough nugget of a film, grimy, gruesome but (amazingly) satisfying. London to Brighton is a faintly ironic title, recalling vintage cars rallies, bike races or simply a day out by the sea. The journey of Kelly and Joanne, conversely, is a desperate flight.<br /><br />The film isn't actually about the journey but bookended by it (if one were to be picky there is a lot of continuity issue here - two clearly different trains on the outward journey, train carriages that are almost a decade out of date - it's not the point). It's a film about the tart- who-discovers-her-heart, Kelly, played excellently by Lorraine Stanley, much of the time beneath a prosthetic shiner. Georgia Groome's Joanne is also impressive; Johnny Harris' loser pimp Derek is another super characterisation, a convincingly exponent of the emotional handbrake turn.<br /><br />The film's story is told briskly in a neatly orchestrated series of flashbacks. There's next to no extraneous incident, which means that Williams has to get the tone pretty right first time. With the possible exception of the mid close-ups of Stuart, the vengeful mobster driving the drama, which I didn't feel had quite the care they might have had, that comes to pass. 7/10