Tim Roth as Sugarman, centre, and his brigand of robbers in Tornado [Norman Wilcox-Geissen]

TORNADO
Directed by John Maclean
Certificate: 15
☆☆☆☆

THIS lo-fi action flick is a wonderfully original tale that provides a platform for us to be reminded, yet again, what a great actor Tim Roth really is.

He plays bandit leader Sugarman, an 18th-century desperado who has his hands on a life-changing bag of booty, a sack of gold that brings with it murderous greed.

The action takes place on Macbeth’s moors, and the soggy Scottish Highlands that provide the stage ladles-on the atmosphere.

A time-jump plot begins with a young girl (played by the Japanese actor Kōki), being followed across heather and grassland by a gang of weathered bandits.

It is Scotland in 1790, and we meet a brigand of robbers who have stolen gold from a church. But before they can divide up their spoils, an opportunistic thief in the shape of a small boy makes off with the riches while the gang are distracted by a travelling show.

We learn that Tornado (Kōki), the daughter of a Japanese puppeteer, is the one being chased and we are lead on a wild and violent journey as to why.

The film has some lovely tics to it. When her father Fujin (Takehiro Hira) confronts Sugarman, he is struck down from distance by an arrow – making his swordsmanship a negligible point. But, as he falls, he does manage to inflict a wound on Sugarman, giving Tim Roth the excuse to pay homage to his superb role as the bleeding out undercover copper in Reservoir Dogs.

This is breathless storytelling, with silent but powerful performances across the board, although it suffers from a sense of geographical illiteracy: the action flits from one location to another and then back again, and it doesn’t really make much sense. How would Sugarman find his buried henchman on the 1,000 of acres of moorland, just when the plot requires it, one finds oneself asking? Perhaps these little creaks are imposed by budgetary constraints.

But it doesn’t matter at all – if anything, it adds to the charm of a hugely watchable, highly original tale with the timeless message that the love of money is truly the root of all evil at its heart.