THE ELLINGTON KID

 DIRECTED BY DAN SULLY

'The Ellington Kid' works by constantly subverting the audience's expectations. It features two men sat in a kebab shop with one of them telling the other the story of a stabbing. In the story, a man gets stabbed and finds himself in the very kebab shop that they are currently sat in.

The film instantly engages the audience with a shot of a man sharpening a knife followed by an intertitle featuring the words 'Based on a true story'. However the next intertitle somewhat undermines this tension with the words 'sort of'. This sets up the tone of the film from the start. We are never quite sure whether to be scared or to laugh

These two shots follow on from each other, and in them, you can clearly see this juxtaposition. As the story is told in the kebab shop, we see the story happening. The bright colours of the shop are replaced by dark muted tones and low lighting. The static, long shots with fast moving, quickly edited ones. When the man who was stabbed enters the kebab shop, he smears blood against the wall creating a graphic image, adding to this juxtaposition - are we watching a comedy or a thriller? 

As the story is being told, suspenseful music slowly rise in volume, and the people in the kebab shop move very slowly, creating a drawn out rising of tension, which is quickly broken when the question of 'What happened?' snaps us back to the kebab shop and the music abruptly stops.

But the film is able to subvert our expectations yet again with the final shot. Just when you think that the film is over, with the two men laughing about the story, the camera pans behind the counter where we see the man from the beginning of the film yet again sharpening his knife.

'The Ellington Kid' is a brilliant combination of thriller and comedy which is masterful at building suspense, The audience never knows what to believe, or where the film will go next.