Critic Reviews

• Wally Hammond, Time Out

  A seemingly self-mocking jumble of sour literary, cinematic, class and genre affectations.

• Cosmo Landesman, Sunday Times (UK)

  The film has great visual flair, but the story is a heavy-handed slice of modern melodrama that would have made Dickens blush.

• Jason Solomons, Observer [UK]

  A series of illogical twists derails a chase movie that ends in the unfortunate metaphor of an empty box.

• Derek Malcolm, This is London

  It is tightly constructed and successfully portrays the underlying tension between Edinburgh's newly prosperous and those who never had anything and never will.

• Allan Hunter, Daily Express

  Energetic direction and a promising central performance counteract the modest budget and some less-than-convincing plot elements.

• , Empire Magazine

  Genuinely thrilling urban chase. The tension just keeps ratcheting up.

• Richard Luck, Film4

  A film featuring free-running that makes this most bizarre of extreme pursuits appear positively pedestrian.

• Wendy Ide, Times [UK]

  The look of the film is unpolished and several of the supporting performances are poor.

• Catherine Shoard, Guardian [UK]

  Given that it's basically one big chase, there's something awfully snoozy about this latest from Richard Jobson - a sort of cut-price, Scottish-set Hostel (a mountain bothy, maybe?).

• Tim Robey, Daily Telegraph

  This is shocking, it suggests David Fincher's The Game shot by crackheads running around with cheap DV cameras.

• Nikki Baughan, Little White Lies

  Social commentary with a video game mentality. Intriguing, if not entirely successful.

• Ben Rawson-Jones, Digital Spy

  Tension and mystery are both constants throughout this very decent indie movie, which could have easily become a cult classic in future years if Sean's two pursuers were better handled by the script.

• Rob Daniel, Sky Movies

  Caught between wanting to make a bold statement and deliver edge of the seat thrills, New Town Killers is a curious mix.

• Matt Glasby, Total Film

  Racing from lawless tenement to loveless townhouse, it's grittier and gutsier than the cut-price Running Man clone it threatens to become, a spiky little speedball of caustic social commentary and guerrilla thrills.

• David Edwards, Daily Mirror [UK]

  So depressing, life-sapping and unrelentingly nihilistic, words have yet to be invented to convey the sheer awfulness of this so-called thriller. A contender for worst film of 2009.

• , Sun Online

  The gloomy back streets and alleyways of Edinburgh are the perfect setting for this heart-in-mouth thriller. The plot is frantic and taut and keeps you gripped until the final credits.

• Matthew Turner, ViewLondon

  A watchable and well acted, if frequently ridiculous thriller.

• Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall

  Brutal and contrived, this Scottish thriller just makes too little sense to hold our attention. It may be filmed with a lot of style, but it's also pretentious, full of cliches and nearly deafening.

• Alistair Harkness, Scotsman

  This is more ambitious than the majority of dreary low-budget Brit flicks.

• Anton Bitel, Eye for Film

  If its deadly game of cat-and-mouse is styled like a fancifully violent video game, the social divisions it exposes are real enough.

Read all 20 critic reviews