City of Tiny Lights (2016) User Reviews (37)

London dick.

[js-66130 · 7/10 · 16 June 2017]

Private eyeing in present day Britain is a rough proposition. Guns are illegal, and then there's the whole immigration tension going on. Tommy Akhtar (wild eyed Riz Ahmed) is a typical, hard-drinking, tough talking, fistcuffing gumshoe with a heart of gold, trying to solve a missing Russian escort case whilst his very complicated past comes back to further cloud the perpetually rainy skies of London.

Ahmed is perfect in the lead, offering equal parts macho and empathetic soul; the gutsy dick able to take a beating, romance a good woman, and stand loyally by his loved ones.

"City of Tiny Lights" uses interesting political bents with religious, racial and drug tensions seething in the background, showing England for the explosive melting pot it truly is. Beautifully shot in wet, dark London, sparkling with Christmassy bokeh lights popping out of ominous shadows, this is one gorgeous looking film.

A little messy and cacophonic at times, this stab of celluloid is saved by a splashy, vibrant style that is pure eye candy.

Disappointing

[Vindelander · 5/10 · 9 May 2021]

Persevered with it till the end but it was a very thin plot and not very exciting.

Can't really blame the quite good cast and I agree with some other reviewers that sound quality was very poor.

Gumshoe

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 27 March 2018]

A contemporary hard boiled private detective neo noir thriller set in London.

The voiceover is provided by Tommy Akhtar (Riz Ahmed) looking after his cricket mad dad (Roshan Seth.) He is a hard drinking, chain smoking rather dinghy private eye in London.

A prostitute called Melody (Cush Jumbo) hires him to find fellow prostitute Natasha who has gone missing after going off with a new client. Tommy finds the client dead in a hotel room.

As Tommy delves deeper he comes across an old friend, who is now a wealthy property developer, trying to take the drug riddled estates, upmarket. The dead client was an associate of this developer. Tommy soon finds the security services sniffing around him. The dead man was also hanging around an imam who might be radicalising the youth, he certainly has a little gang who is chasing away drug dealers.

As the film goes on, Tommy recalls his past, 20 years ago when he fancied his best mate's girl Shelley (Billie Piper.) We gather his mate died but he sees Shelley again who is now a single mother and both rekindle their affections for each other.

There is nothing too original about City of Tiny Lights, we can sort of guess who will turn out to be the culprit. It all feels a little bleak and jagged. The movie needed more humour and should had been more offbeat. Albert Finney got it right in Stephen Frears 'Gumshoe' back in 1971.

Cinema Should Address Such Stories

[Blue-Grotto · 7/10 · 5 October 2016]

"I deal with the lies people tell, and truths that they don't," says Tommy, a London detective. Everyone has secrets. Tommy enters the underworld of the big city in search of a missing woman. Along the way he revisits intimate betrayals, a tragic accident and an ex- girlfriend in a love triangle. Tommy struggles with his moral compass in such matters of the past. This inner struggle is worse than the storm of trouble of the outside world – which, by the way, includes terrorists, government agents, and shady real estate agents - for without knowing his heart or who or what to rely on, how can he react? What direction does he go? Who can he trust if he can't trust himself? Martin Luther King said it best, "if you don't have anything you are willing to die for, then what do you have to live for?!"

From the director of Dredd, which I loved, this film was eight years in making. "Cinema should address such stories," said the director "it takes people to wholly different place." I think what Travis is getting at is that this Pakistani detective story gives us a glimpse not only of the London underworld but also of a very different perspective than many people are familiar with. The film delightfully incorporates lessons from the game of cricket including getting in the head of opponents (as with baseball, there is not much physical activity going on in cricket, and it is more of a mental game rather than a physical challenge for participants of this sport).

It is wonderful seeing the film in a packed theater and on the big screen. As characters enter a nightclub, the seats vibrate with the throb of the base speakers kicking in. Americans do not understand why the detective doesn't have a gun, but they are illegal to possess in the U.K. There are camera shots from drones that add interesting angles to the filming location. Funny moments include a lot of escort jokes. "I'm surprised you showed up," said an escort to a detective. "Why are you surprised?" "People pay me and I don't have to come," she says. Even though the film is in English, it would be easier for North Americans to understand if there were subtitles or a phrasebook handed out at the start of the film for the wacky U.K. vocabulary! The film began with depth, energy and power, yet this promise was squandered. There were not that many twists to the story. World premiere seen at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.

Survival

[kosmasp · 7/10 · 10 December 2020]

Depending not just on your skin color, but religion ... there are some people who may view you in a certain way. Racism, discrimination and so forth does exist and I doubt it will ever go away. There is too much interest and convienience for some people to hold others down.

Now this is more of a personal story and it may feel a bit convoluted to some. But Riz Ahmed does an excellent job to keep us the viewers more than interested. The casting is really good, also of the younger versions of our characters who look similar and still are really good actors. Not an easy thing to achieve, even if the movie makes it look easy.

If you are interested in human drama and relationships and how some people are treated and their struggle and fight against that .... you could do a lot worse. Very decent movie, well edited too

Incomprehensible

[rick-morgan9063 · 3/10 · 11 May 2017]

There appears to be something wrong with the sound mixing, perhaps a post production goof but this film is very hard to follow as the dialogue is lost in the background noise.

I might add that I am both British and used to London and regional brit accents, yet I still struggled, In the interests of full disclosure, I never made it to the end of the film due to said issues, so my low score reflects my dissatisfaction with the audio quality.

Learn to lip-read, or avoid

Abysmally bad

[Phil_Chester · 27 December 2020]

I genuinely doubt they could have made this film worse, even if they had tried. To be frank, the main entertainment value was shouting at the screen, 'Oh, come on, this can't get any worse!', only to be confounded by the film's stupidity in the very next scene. Just appallingly badly made. You'd think it would be impossible to make a film this weak in this day and age, when every YouTuber can teach you how to write a good script. Abysmal.

"Not exactly a happy family, it never is, but we let the ghosts rest..."

[RosanaBotafogo · 7/10 · 4 July 2021]

A good drama, there was something missing to involve us, but it's nice to follow, crime, flashbacks of friendships and betrayals of the past, which with it carries the weight of guilt, carried for years... And a good outcome, when everything settles down, after years troubled... "Not exactly a happy family, it never is, but we let the ghosts rest..."

TERRIBLE audio mixing

[andrew-marks59 · 3/10 · 25 January 2017]

From what I actually did pick up on from the movie, the story was pretty interesting and Riz Ahmed did a pretty good job. It was incredibly hard to understand what everybody in the movie were saying, the background noise was too loud, the music was too loud, and the heavy accents at low volumes are hard to understand if you're not familiar with how they speak in England. I don't think they need to change their voices or anything, it's how they speak and I totally respect that, it was just hard to understand for me and most of the audience at my screening.

My suggestion: watch it with subtitles when it releases on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Seen at TIFF 2016.

Great if your a fan.

[mitchikus · 7/10 · 9 August 2017]

I'm a fan of London based tales, probably biased as I grew up in south London, so first off, the American audience very rarely understand our street talk, and secondly, as for sound issues there is none and I was watching low volume too.

I really enjoyed this film, yes some parts not superb but all in all its a good watch and has potential.

Tepid neo-noir

[willcrabbe · 4/10 · 14 June 2021]

Riz Ahmed is the standout in this grimy yet stylish neo noir that is let down by some dodgy camerawork and an uninteresting story.

London Noir

[karinrjeffrey · 8/10 · 2 August 2017]

I really enjoyed this British take on the noir genre. It had a sensitive and moving performance by Riz Ahmed as a troubled PI. The plot, like all good noir, is satisfyingly layered. In addition to being an excellent whodunit, it addresses Islamophobia, the treatment of immigrants and the growing feeling that there are hidden agendas that affect our everyday lives. Not high budget or flashy but very well done. Highly recommended.

Almost very good

[Ioreka · 6/10 · 12 June 2020]

Love Riz Ahmed's performance in this. You really do end up rooting for him. The film is stylish and atmospheric. No idea about the sound problems that others report. Didn't find those at all. What I did find was two storylines (an historic one, told through flashback, and a contemporary one) that didn't quite add up. And quite a lot is asked of the viewer. You have to fill in the gaps, and at times they are a little too big. As a consequence the storyline becomes a little disjointed.

A Boy & His Cigarette

[mcjensen-05924 · 4/10 · 7 November 2020]

Laughbly absure nonsense. Not long into this movie it was apparent the script was badly floundering. The acting is truly horrendous, and at any time someone was prone to just burst out into some PC speech totally out of context with what was previously happening. The personalities of the cast were wooden, and all attempts to boost the image of the lead as a private investigator fell flat. Completely unbleievable in the role, but he's a promising talent for sure. If you've never gotten tired of seeing someone smoke in a movie, you will after this. It's completely unnecessary. He smokes. We get it. We don't need to see it every frame of every scene. The cigarette should be mentioned in the credits, as it's the most consistent thing about this movie. The settings and scenes are appropriately dark and mysterious and add a sense of forboding menace, but it's not enough raise this sad effort beyond the level of cliche nothingness.

As so many others have said .........

[marklaw-37806 · 13 May 2020]

..... the poor quality soundtrack makes this film incomprehensible.

The plot looks excellent - if only I could follow it!

A semio-noir movie that should have been better

[iantrader · 6/10 · 27 December 2017]

This has Noir written all over it and I desperately wanted to give a it a 10 but, as it progressed, its shortcoming were revealed and I had to settle for a 5. Shame. It had so much promise.

It starts brilliantly with an excellent noir backdrop and a superb modern noir music theme. The (anti?)hero is a smoker - how much more noir can you get!?

It hits all the spot - beatings, abductions, threats, being followed, spooks, friends in danger - and worse!.

However, much is shot in dim lighting with faded colours so it's not always easy to see what's happening. Atmospheric? If you have to resort to such tricks then No. In The Third Man and The Maltese Falcon every frame was clear. Dim lighting does not equal atmosphere. Who's at fault - the director or cinematographer? Let them share the blame.

It tries to fill the troublesome middle section (actually most of the first 3/4 of the movie with flashback exposition. Too much, too much, and not all required. The backstory was quite well telegraphed without all that, and a backstory with the most unlikely of pairings in the history of cinema! (although if Billy Piper could fancy Chris Evans, other than for his money, then any match is fair game!)

Add as the editor or director decides to play fast and loose with totally unnecessary film effects (motion blurring and, heck, just blurred filming and shaky hand-help camera work), you start to wonder what happened to the 'noir'. And as the filming deteriorated, so did the music. From the initial atmospheric theme, it descended into electronic thriller mode.

And as the theme of a missing girl morphs into a semi-global political and terrorist theme, the 'magic' of noir is lost.

Sorry if that sounds damning. It's not so much, but it is incredibly disappointing. Even China Town didn't have to go that far to 'try' to be important. It's not about the theme, it's about the people.

So, you might be surprised it still gets an 6. I am! But it loses more points for disappointment than for lack of initial effort. It's still worth watching but it should have been so much better.

Definitely not a dog

[calicut110 · 6/10 · 23 April 2018]

This is a decent film. Riz Ahmed shows he's worthy of a lead role. He's definitely the best actor in the film. The writing has a few issues and the sub plot feels a little over worked but it's definitley entertaining.

Neither thrilling nor witty

[maxcih · 4/10 · 27 March 2019]

This movie spends a lot of time showing Tommy Aktar sucking on cigarettes and drinking double shots of bourbon. He also goes back and forth to places in London, mostly at night. The back story of relationships with a former friend who is now a young real estate and the widow of his best friend when he was a young man are somewhat interesting...but the script is not written well enough to create tension regarding real estate, a Muslim mullah and a high-priced call girl that has gone missing. Way too long.

North American audiences won't understand much of this film

[michaeljtrubic · 4/10 · 25 September 2016]

Me and many others rushed out of the premiere frustrated that the dialog was both in comprehensible and overwhelmed by background noise. Much of the film takes place on London streets, nightclubs and other noisy places. The thick London accents together with all of the background noises serve to frustrate the audience's ability to understand the dialog and with it, the plot.

The lack of audible speech limits us to follow the actors using visible cues, this doesn't work because the film of course is a mystery. I wondered if the digital print that the film festival received had subtitles attached - it might have saved the movie for many who attended.

I think the next time I see a premiere that is so audibly frustrating I will cry out for subtitles and hopefully the projectionist will do something.

Unfortunately, I recommend everyone wait for a DVD version with subtitles.

Very disappointed.

Predictable!

[RodrigAndrisan · 4/10 · 30 September 2017]

I had some bigger expectations from this movie. That's because I had a small role, Protestant Muslim at 1hour 21 plus another scene. I am always terribly sincere and objective, so this is my opinion: I did not read the book but I understood the dialogue perfectly (most of the others who wrote reviews here they are complaining about the bad sound and the incomprehensible English - well, advantage me, I've learned English all alone, watching tens of thousands of films and translating them in my home country, Romania, for 17 years...) The film is neither stupid nor great, it is moderate to not say mediocre. The image is excellent (Felix Wiedemann), and the music also (Ruth Barrett). The actors' performance did not impress me at all. They are just... acting. Overall, the movie is boring, it has nothing spectacular, the story is trivial and uninteresting. Worse and awkward scene is also the most important in the film, when Farzad Akhtar(Roshan Seth) is shooting Jerry Quinn (Barry Aird).

Decent effort, good mood piece.

[gtworld · 8/10 · 30 July 2017]

First, for the bad sound review, watch it in a theater or on a good streaming site. If you're using Kodi, make sure you know how to adjust the sound. I saw it while Jillian Michaels was telling me to walk faster on my treadmill and I got every word. The sound mix is just fine, thank you. Next, the mood is right out of Raymond Chandler, complete with hard, tough observations that sound as if they're from the '40s. Put that in modern London with first gen Brits and it kind of fits, strange but true. The hero drinks Wild Turkey straight, too.

The teen angst parts are good, they fit with the present story and are well acted. Overall, the film is good entertainment and has a wonderful multi-cultural mix. Who knew cricket had so many insights into life?

Poorly structured and adapted....

[joebloggscity · 3/10 · 18 March 2018]

This is a low budget movie, but as it has the luck of a few notable names in UK acting, then surely it should have been of far greater quality with what we are lumped with here.

Centring round a Private Detective out to find a lost prostitute, as ever there is more than meets the eye, but the storyline never seems to work. If anything there is too much ridiculous nonsense. Added to that is a woeful added back story with the reappearance on an old girlfriend and so on.

Most of the cast seems to have just faxed in their parts and Billie Piper appears here as 'Billie Piper' it seems, only there to raise some attention for the film but nothing else.

The terrorism, asian community, corruption, police cover up stuff, just doesn't seem to all gel together, and it's a mess.

Add in a director who is trying to make this all look high brow, ends up with a number of camera shots which end up taking you away from the film, and it really looks poor. Trying to be creative or showing action or cleverness, but really not at all.

I'd say you should just avoid this. It's short but you can spend your time watching better.

Dawdles, dawdles and dawdles

[GwydionMW · 2/10 · 12 October 2017]

I'm supposed to respect a private detective too dumb to wear a hat in the rain? It seems to think its mood is fascinating.

I found it dull. Too much lingering over the unimportant.

An utterly banal story idea, but faster paced it might have been OK.

It was still a silly copy of a US tale, out of place.

Making it ethnic did not help.

PC Noir mess

[jrgibson-51931 · 1/10 · 10 May 2020]

A feeble attempt to make a PC Chandler-style noir set in London today. Of course the BBC Films & BFI logos at the start are signs of a right-on multicultural PC propaganda story to follow and they rarely disappoint. City of Tiny Lights tries unsuccessfully to depict a tough Chandleresque PI in London. Sadly, a poor script and direction by someone who has either not seen or not learned from the classic Film Noirs of the 1940's results in a confusing and plodding narrative. In place of smart dialogue and engaging characters we have gimmicky shots and a restless camera, which despite a fine lead performance, results in a tedious film set in a very multicultural part of London.

If you want to see real film noir Chandler, watch Edward Dmytryk's Murder My Sweet instead.

Audio catastropic!

[bazcaz · 4/10 · 24 January 2021]

Watched the trailer and thought give it a go as like most U.K. crime movies/series, managed about 10mins and gave it away,sound etc deplorable and ruined it for me,don't post production check these things??