Bypass

The hard-bitten terseness doesn't stop a faint glimmer of sentiment leaking in, but Hopkins is a stylist and a social observer with a cogent personal signature.

Another sensitive performance from George MacKay (last seen in Pride) gives Duane Hopkins's drama Bypass a solid emotional core.

A welcome corrective to Benefits Street-type cynicism.

Overusing lens-flare-y wooziness and a handheld, shallow depth of field aesthetic in an effort to inject a kind of lyricism into its dehumanized urban environments and working-class interiors, "Bypass" never settles into anything like a compelling rhythm.

Bypass is a disappointment, with obvious talent going to waste due to too much emphasis on aesthetics and not enough to telling an original and gripping story.

Stylish but heavy-handed.

For all the doughty naturalism of the performances, the photography, editing and sound design, the film feels overly detached from the reality it is supposed to be conveying.

After Pride, young British actor George MacKay returns to a much smaller scale of filmmaking for this dark, moody English drama...

Hopkins inclination to be artistic and creative, while admirable, does little but ensure this production revels far more in the style, and not quite so much in the substance.